"I want to acknowledge that I am currently on the unceded territory of the Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations..." On this "Orange Shirt Day", we have been reflecting on the Indigenous children that had to leave their families and go to schools far away, often forgetting how to speak their own language while they were gone. We learned, to our surprise, that our school is on what was once Katzie land! We have begun to practice a land acknowledgment in French and hope to recite it to our families and at an assembly at some point this year. We have also spent the days leading up to Orange Shirt Day learning how to do some Indigenous drumming! Last year, a young Katzie woman named Lilly Teare Cunningham from the Katzie First Nation came to our school and taught some of our classes a song that she had written in her people's language of Hul'q'umi'num', all about her ancestors. She gifted us the song so that we could continue singing it. ![]()
We learned this week about what it means to respect the drums since real Indigenous drums are made out of animal hides. Whenever an animal loses its life for our purposes, it's customary to thank the animal and to treat the objects made from it as if they were living things. We only place our drums upright, never upside-down. And we don't hit our friends with them or put them on our heads. In this case, the drums that we are using are not authentic Indigenous drums, but we will soon be able to use a set of authentic ones so it's important that we develop these habits now. Drumming also has the benefits of teaching us how to keep our eyes on the leader (Madame) and watch closely and quietly. As she changes the rhythm, we need to be aware so that we can follow. There are many self-regulation strategies that we can develop just from a simple drumming lesson! As an activity on Orange Shirt Day, we met with our Big Buddy class for the first time and made dream catchers! Dreamcatchers were originally created by the Ojibwe, but they have been widely adapted by other peoples. And while it would be cultural appropriation to SELL a dreamcatcher that is not made by an Indigenous artist, it is okay for us to MAKE our own for personal use. We loved learning about the idea that dreamcatchers would "catch" our bad dreams and had so much fun working and playing with our Big Buddies for the first time! Some of us even found our buddies again at recess to play and get piggy-back rides. We spent some time playing outside with other friends today, too! (Thank you, Mme P, for these photos!)... It was a musical kind of week because, on top of the daily drumming, we also had some mini impromptu piano recitals! Madame played "Bonne fête" (Happy Birthday) for Wyatt on the piano and then some of us wanted to show off our OWN piano-playing skills. We loved listening to several little performances. We definitely have some budding musicians! In Math this week, we took a closer look at a hundreds chart and noticed that it's FULL of patterns! We enjoyed trying to count to 100 in French and learning about the weirdness of French numbers. (The word for "80", for example, actually translates to "four twenties", and the word for "91" translates to "four twenties eleven"... we're doing Math just by saying a number!) We had fun working with partners to try different counting strategies and ways of adding numbers together. The "building corner" This may become a regular section of extra photos that we tack on at the end since this group seems to LOVE creating and having me document it for their families! "Send it to my mom!" is a regular phrase. So here you go, Mom. ;-) (...and Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa). Behold, the "tickle machines"...
Comments are closed.
|
Archives
June 2024
Categories |