| At Green Bay Kindergarten, the kaiako have been observing a lot of wonderful cooperative work and play and this has been awesome to witness. We work hard to create and maintain an environment that promotes manaakitanga/respect and atawhai/kindness for all members of our learning community. Our internal enquiry is focused on strengthening our bicultural practices and kaiako are observing and acknowledging these Māori concepts in action within our learning community. One example of this has been hearing our tamariki refer to themselves as a tuakana, as they take on leadership roles, and engage with the concepts of tuakana/teina.
Acknowledging māwhero/pink shirt day was a perfect way to promote some of these values and to discuss ways that we can be kind and helpful towards one another. The kaiako role model these values and they are an important part of our philosophy and kindergarten culture. We have a ‘kindness jar’ and kind actions that we observe are acknowledged at our hui/mat times. The tamariki choose a gem to put into our jar and at the end of term we celebrate in a variety of different ways, i.e a dress up day or Teddy Bear’s Picnic. The tamariki are also able to nominate their friends for acts of kindness. We enjoyed lots of pukapuka/books, took part in music and movement, magnetic waiata/songs. We have a few favourite pukapuka which we find to be excellent tools that support teaching tamariki about their emotions, and providing strategies to enhance self-regulation and effective communication. Many beautiful artworks were also created by our talented tamariki as they designed their own māwhero t-shirts. Giving the tamariki the opportunity to share their feelings and ideas on how to display kindness to others, promoted their emotional competency and nurtured feelings of positive self esteem.
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