Monday, April 16, 2018

Incorporating First Nations, Metis, and Inuit teachings in my classroom

Over the course of the school year I've been trying to incorporate some First Nations, Metis, and Inuit (FNMI) teachings in my classroom. Last year I had a student who's mother is a member of the Anishinaabe (I believe... I can update this after speaking to her) and she was trying to teach her son some of the traditions and teachings of the Anishinaabe. Every couple of weeks he'd come to class and share with us what his mom or family members taught him or he'd tell us about an event he attended. He once told us that he was dancing at a pow wow and shared some pictures and video his parents took. This began to spark an interest in my class and 5 other kindergarten classes in the school. We started to learn about the symbolism/importance of animals and nature. We then create totem poles as a large art project for all the classes. This then caught the attention of members from Oneida Circle and the Canadian Carabram pavilion (a local multicultural festival) One resource to helped me was the Aboriginal Perspectives: A Guide to the Teacher’s Toolkit. I used this before using the actual tool kit as there sorta isn't a Kindergarten resource, but instead for grades 1-12. The toolkit can be found here. There is some general information that can help build your knowledge of Aboriginal perspectives and teachings.

Here's a picture of the totem poles we made:

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