October 1, 2022 · current events
Our first joint Halloween costume - a double high five! Our 5th graders were amused. Rebecca Nagle reminded me that it was suddenly fall and a perfect time to share resources and reminders for the upcoming holidays. Her tweet thread explains it beautifully and shares helpful resources. Our blog posts below share different strategies and ideas for addressing Columbus Day (Indigenous Peoples Day), Halloween, and Thanksgiving in the classroom. We taught these lessons with elementary school students (3rd or 5th grade), but they can easily be adapted for older learners. Columbus Day (Indigenous Peoples Day): October 12th Unfortunately, Columbus Day is still a federal holiday, although more and more communities have voted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead. We facilitated Columbus Day Debates with our students one year and led a Holiday Inquiry: Columbus Day another year. If you
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November 21, 2021 · curriculum
Image from My Map Book by Sara Fanelli Happy almost Thanksgiving! This has been an incredibly long fall, especially for teachers. Even when we are beyond tired, it is always a good time to remind people (including ourselves) to give thanks and reflect on what we are grateful for. We like to share with students that there are many benefits to giving thanks including our own mental and physical health. But first and foremost, it’s important to appreciate the people in our lives who take care of us and keep us safe. Make thank you cards. My class will be working on thank you cards for many of the staff in our school building, especially the custodians who clean up after us every single day as well as the kitchen staff who cooks for us. If you don’t know everyone’s name, find time to introduce yourself, learn how their name is spelled, and how they like to be addressed. Most of the people
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November 17, 2021 · curriculum
Resources & Great Place to Start American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) Teaching for Change 2021 Indigenous Peoples’ Day Curriculum Teach-In (especially the section about Native Voices in Children’s Literature by Dr. Debbie Reese, the creator of AICL) Native American Heritage Month Resources For Teachers Our ideas for addressing Thanksgiving in 3rd grade this year (on top of expressing gratitude to all the people who take care of us at school): The word Indigenous - explained l CBC Kids News Newsela article: A Native American poet reimagines Thanksgiving and the poem referenced in the article: America, I Sing You Back by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Read aloud: We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell We also just bought two new books that we are VERY excited about: Classified, The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer by Traci Sorell JoJo Makoons by
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May 2, 2016 · Uncategorized
This week, we shared a note in our all school newsletter about our presentation at the White Privilege Conference. We were surprised and touched when a parent of a former student came to tell us she read our newsletter addition and she was so happy to hear about us sharing our work with a larger audience! Apparently, our work with her child last year changed the way she thought about inequity, structural poverty, racism and more. This has impacted her role as a teacher at an inter-faith Sunday school as they now do activities that she said she never would have thought of before we taught her child. She said that from experiential activities even the young students were able to understand more abstract concepts because they were engaged and felt something. She was thrilled to see that we are reaching other adults and educators. It's always lovely to hear positive memories from a former
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