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!