Family Event: Shaker Making at A.A. Wright

As a result of the Calls to Action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission we have been working on inviting community members from Bkejwanong (the First Nation closest to A.A. Wright) into our school to share Indigenous ways of knowing and learning in meaningful ways.  Recently, we invited Cecil Isaac to come in after school and lead some of our families in shaker making.

We started our event by sharing a meal together.  This is always a great opportunity to share, chat, and build a sense of community with our families.  After we had finished eating Cecil began to walk us through the process of creating our deer hide shakers.

The first thing that we needed to do some soak the hide overnight the night before so that it would be pliable and ready to sew on shaker making night.  We cut the hide out in advance to save the students and their families the hassle on the night of.  We used a leather punch to create holes around the edges and then our students and their adults used sinew to sew the two pieces of hide together.  Once this was done the kids packed their shaker with sand to give it shape as the hide dried.  The last step for the evening was to put the dowel handle in and wrap sinew around it to keep it in place while the hide dries.

It was so fantastic to see some of our families coming together, working on a common task, and creating a traditional Anishnaabe instrument.  We are all looking forward to night two where we will come back to together remove the sand, and fill our shakers with beans.  After we fill our bellies with another shared meal first, of course.

Check out the pictures below from shaker making night 1!