February's Pick 3 Linky: Pink Shirt Day

I'm linking up with Pawsitively Teaching for February's Pick 3 Linky! Since I'm late to the party, I won't share any Valentine's pins. Instead I'll focus on Pink Shirt Day, which happens on Wednesday, February 24th.

Do you know the story behind Pink Shirt Day? Here's a quick video that explains everything you need to know!

I like to start with the crumpled heart activity, as pictured in this pin. I read aloud "Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes. Every time someone is unkind to the main character, a student crumples the paper heart and passes it to the person beside him. At the end, we try to smooth out the crumpled heart, and the students make the connection that, much like the paper heart, we can never really smooth out a real heart that has been treated unkindly.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/514395588665015341/

Last year I came across some amazing activities on Jennifer Runde's blog. This pin shows pink shirts with inspirational messages on them, much like the ones my students ended up creating. Because I didn't want all of my students to choose the same few phrases, I had them Google "anti-bullying quotes" and click on "images". Last week, my fifth graders went around the school distributing the pink t-shirt templates and explaining the activity to each class. By next week, we hope to see pink t-shirts decorating all of our hallway bulletin boards!

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/47780446025096015/

This last pin links to some literacy resources on the WITS Program website. According to their website, WITS "bring[s] together schools, families and communities to create responsive environments that help elementary school children deal with bullying and peer victimization." I love this program because it was developed in British Columbia, where I live!

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/80642649550269802/

My students have been practicing this song to perform next week:

{skip ahead to about a minute and half into the video}

Does your school participate in Pink Shirt Day? I'd love to hear what you do at your school!

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Pink Shirt Day 2015

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Pink Shirt Day 2015

Credits: Borders by Krista Wallden / Fonts by Kimberly Geswein

Here in Canada, we celebrate anti-bullying day in February. Everyone wears a pink shirt to symbolize that we won't tolerate bullying. Here's a great video that explains everything in kid-friendly language.

Pink Shirt Day began in Nova Scotia when a ninth grade boy wore a pink shirt on the first day of school. After he was bullied for his choice, two other boys went out and purchased pink shirts for their classmates to wear.

Yesterday, my third graders worked in groups of four or five students to write poems from the point of view of the Bully, Bullied, and Upstander. We borrowed this idea from Jen Runde of the blog Runde's Room but chose to focus on Upstanders, rather than Bystanders. We also searched online for anti-bullying quotes and copied them onto pink t-shirt templates. 

The highlight of the day was watching this amazing video, created by our grade 5 students:

I leave you with one question: How Would YOU like to be remembered?

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