Tag Archives: activities

Module 4 – Post 5 – Residential School Survivors + Beyond 94

This website provides stories from residential school survivors from video interviews: Janet Longclaws, Katherine Thomas, Louise Longclaws, Debra Courchene, Wandbi Wakita, Peter Yellowquill, Louise Hall, Vivian, and Karen. These videos are from the Beyond 94: Truth and Reconciliation in Canada project. All of these videos just break my heart. You can hear the pain and horror in their voice and you can see the trauma they faced by looking at their eyes. These individuals have PTSD and cannot get these flashbacks out of their head. I just can’t even imagine why anyone would do all these horrible things to another human being. It is absolutely appalling and disgusting.

As educators, it is important that we listen to these stories so that we never forget them. The truth cannot be hidden any longer. It is time for healing and the reconciliation process to fully begin. We need to all listen to EVERY story. We need to learn the truth that has been hidden for way too long. The more we know as educators, the more that we can educate our students, colleagues, family members, and our friends.

While I was exploring more on this website, I stumbled upon a teacher guide for Beyond 94: Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. There is a lot of valuable material within this guide. Topics such as education, language and culture, health, justice, reconciliation, child welfare, and activities to do in the classroom, First nation communities support, and residential school resources. The main purpose of this guide is to allow educators and their students to explore and investigate the TRC Calls to Action and the Beyond 94 site. I appreciate how this guide has follow-up questions from the residential school survivor video interviews. This could allow educators to have a class discussion about what they watched and to see if the students understood the content. It may be too challenging to comprehend for Kindergarten students but the questions could be adapted and could work for upper primary to intermediate grades.

The 7 activities that are provided in this guide focus on acknowledging territory, TRC – educating others, language, residential schools, finding evidence of Indigeneity, and language/culture, exploring child welfare, and examining justice.

For more information on residential schools, there are resources on pages 35-37. Explore them all and share with everyone.

Module 2: Post 5 – The Learning Circle

The Learning Circle is a resource full of classroom activities on First Nations in Canada. There are six units in this booklet: storytelling, the seasons, sharing, colours, games, and National Aboriginal Day. All of these units would be an amazing resource to use in  my classroom. However, I want to take a closer look at the Storytelling Unit. Throughout this unit, students will get to understand the importance of Indigenous storytelling. During this unit, there is an activity that focuses on a Cree Story about a big fish who ate a granddaughter.  Then the teachers will have a discussion with their students about what this story taught them, they will get to role-play the story, students will get to gather items from outside to create their own story. Then the last activity focuses on an Ojibway story called the Lilly Root. Educators can then do what they did with the first story through a variety of activities. There are questions provided for a class discussion.

These stories are exactly what I want to use in my classroom. I love how there are activities that go with each story. I would not just stop at the storytelling unit. I would absolutely complete this entire booklet!

M1 P1: Science First Peoples

This resource ties together BC Science Curriculum content with Indigenous content. It provides the Indigenous perspective on topics such as evolution, energy systems, and climate change. By giving additional perspectives, students are able to get a deeper understanding of the topics. In this case, with energy systems and climate change, students are able to see how different cultures viewed where they got their energy from and also how they are affected by climate change differently. In addition to information, it also provides various activities for students to work through to build their understanding.

http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/PUBLICATION-61496-Science-First-Peoples-2016-Full-F-WEB.pdf

Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives in K-12 Curriculum

Module 1 Post 5

 

 

 

This BC government site documents implicit and explicit links between Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives and specific curricular (or cross-curricular) areas according to B.C.’s redesigned curriculum, and the links can be applied to other provincial curriculums similarly. It also links the connection to the Math First Peoples Teacher Resource Guide, which provides specific activities with developed elements to support the integration of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (n.d.) Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives in K-12 Curriculum. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/indigenous-education-resources/indigenous-knowledge-and-perspectives-k-12-curriculum

First Nations Education Steering Committee. (2020). Math First Peoples. http://www.fnesc.ca/math-first-peoples/

Module 1: Post 1 – Medicine Wheel Education

Medicine Wheel Education is a great resource that provides educators with storybook titles that can be bought online or in bookstores. All of these books are from Indigenous authors telling their stories. The authors are Phyllis Webstad, David Bouchard, Theresa “Corky” Larsen-Jonasson, Kevin Locke, Kung Jaadee, Trudy Spiller, and Juliana Armstrong. I recently purchased some of these books to add to my classroom collection: Trudy’s Healing Stone, The Hoop Dancer’s Teaching, Phyllis’s Orange Shirt, The Circle of Caring and Sharing, and The Eagle Feather. These books are fantastic for primary students to learn about Indigenous stories in a way that is simplistic for little minds. If you create an account with this website, scroll to the bottom and click “printable activities.” There are activities that teachers can do with their students as an elaboration or continuation for the storybook after reading the book to the class. For only $5/month or $50/year, you can have the books read by the authors, interactive lesson plans, and additional activities that can be used. This is such a small price to pay to support Indigenous authors and the sharing of their stories.

Source: Retrieved from Medicine Wheel Education website