Indigenous Peoples Day

Celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day ~ As a centre we explored indigenous symbols and learned about how the symbols were used to communicate with one another. We learned that pen and paper didn’t exist a really long time ago, and the aboriginal peoples left each other messages in the sand and carved into caves, to communicate with one another and keep a log of their journies and findings. Through art, we had the opportunity to learn and create some of the symbols. The children chose which symbol they wanted to create, and traced it using an indigenous dot painting technique. We engaged in lots of conversation about what each symbol represents and how they can be interpreted. A group of friends went on a nature walk to collect sticks- and immediately ran to the tree to pick some! I challenged them to find sticks that had already broken off the tree, and they had to search for some! The children then practiced drawing the symbols in the sand, and noticed that when the sand was dry and loose it was hard to see the symbol! Some friends suggested that we make the sand “a little bit wet” to be more like mud. We engaged in conversation about how this might have been a challenge that the indigenous peoples faced while carving in the sand.