My Heart Fills with Happiness

 School Wide Read Aloud Book 4:

My Heart Fills with Happiness by Monique Gray Smith

Words of the Week:

Heart - Deh

Sing - Nigaam

I am happy - N’gchi-nendam

I love you - Gizaagin

Click here to access the Words of the Week PDF

How Chipmunk Got His Stripes

 School Wide Read Aloud Book 3: 

How Chipmunk Got His Stripes by Joesph Bruchac and James Bruchac

Words of the Week:

Chipmunk - Goonsenh

Fox - Waagosh

Owl - Kokoko

Rabbit - Waabooz

Click here to access the Words of the Week PDF

Last Leaf First Snowflake to Fall

School Wide Read Aloud Book 2:

Last Leaf First Snowflake to Fall  by Leo Yerxa

 

Words of the Week: 

It's Snowing - Zoogpo

Fire - Mshkode

Canoe (or boat) - Jiimaan

Click here to access the Word of the Week PDF

Indigenous Authored Books

Hello, Boozhoo! It's been awhile since we've posted but we wanted to let everyone know that we are still here and still working hard to bring Ojibwe into our schools. During our TLLP project, we were able to invite Elders into our classrooms to share stories and lessons with our students. We would learn several Ojibwe words from the stories and then turn those into our school wide Ojibwe Word of the Week learning. For those of you who have followed along on this journey, Thank You and Miigwech! We hope that you have been able to learn with us! 

One of the challenges of our TLLP project was that not everyone in our school was able to hear the stories being shared in our classrooms. So, we decided to change how we were going to choose and learn Ojibwe Words of the Week. We decided that we would choose words from an Indigenous authored book and then educators would be able to read the book in their classrooms. 

We are fortunate that each month Nicole reads and records the books for P.E. McGibbon. The first Monday of each month we play this recording is played on our video announcements so that the entire school gets to hear the story together. 

We will post our book choice and words each month if you would like to learn with us. Miigwech! 

Nicole, Chantima, Allie, Jen and Gretchen

Turtles Race with Beaver by Joseph Bruchac and James Bruchac

Words of the Week:

Mzhiikenh - Turtle

Amik - Beaver

Makwa - Bear

Waawaashkesh - Deer 

Click here to access the Word of the Week PDF 

Ojibwe Word of the Week: June

This month we decided to continue with the idea of a pow wows and chose words from the book "Bow Wow Pow Wow". We read this book to our classes, watched videos about the significance of pow wows and reflected on our own visit to the Lambton College Pow Wow earlier in the year. This book had a lot of animals so we decided on four animals for the words of the week. We have found that our students make good connections when the words are animals.

Ojibwe Words of the Week: June

Nimosh - Dog
Waabooz - Rabbit
Esiban - Raccoon
Gaag - Porcupine

Click here to access the Ojibwe Word of the Week PDF

Ojibwe Word of the Week: May

This month we decided to focus our words on members of the family. We read the book "Jingle Dancer" to our classes, which focuses on a little girls' journey to create her very own own jingle dress. She visits different members of her family to talk about her dress and get jingles to add to her dress. When she gets her dress made she hopes to dance at the next pow wow.

Late spring and summer are when local First Nations communities host Pow Wows, so we added the word Pow Wow to this month's words as well.

Ojibwe Word of the Week: May

Mishomis - Grandfather
Ngashi - My Mother
Noos - My Father
Biiweziimag - Family
Jiingtamog - PowWow

Click here to access the Ojibwe Word of the Week PDF

Ojibwe Word of the Week: April

In preparation for some exciting events, this month we have decided to choose words that are related to PowWows and dancing. This month our schools will be attending the Lambton College PowWow. It will be an incredible opportunity for our students to engage in some indigenous cultural activities. They are very excited about watching and trying out some dancing! Which brings us to our second event, the Great Lakes Woodland Dance Troupe. During the month of May, both schools will be hosting the dance troupe and we look forward to their singing, dancing and storytelling!

Ojibwe Words of the Week: April

Ngamwin - song

Mnidoominesag - beads
Dewegan - drum
Niimi - He or she is dancing
Jiingtamog - PowWow 

Click here to access the Ojibwe Words of the Week PDF 

Ojibwe Word of the Week: March

This month we continued to focus on words from Joanne Robertson's book "The Water Walker".  Some of the words in the book are spelled differently in our local communities. We talked to area Ojibwe speakers and decided to use local spelling.

Ojibwe Words of the Week: March

Chi-Miigwech - Thank You Very Much, Big Thank You

Migizi - Eagle

Gimaa - Leader or Chief

Click here to access the Ojibwe Words of the Week PDF

Ojibwe Word of the Week: February

As you may have noticed, we did not have any new Ojibwe words for the month of January. Instead, we chose to make January a review month. Each day on our announcements we reviewed a different word. This gave staff and students a great chance to refresh their memories on how many Ojibwe words we have learned so far this year!

When we thought about what words to do in February, Gretchen suggested words from Joanne Robertson's book "The Water Walker". It is an amazing true story about an Ojibwe Grandmother that walks to raise awareness for the need to protect our water for future generations. Gretchen has held several workshops within our school board on how to use "The Water Walker" to make curriculum connections in the classroom. We made sure to share with our respective staffs, that copies of the book are available in our schools so that everyone can learn together.

In other VERY EXCITING NEWS, Joanne Robertson agreed to help us out with Ojibwe Word of the Week. She made two of the videos this month. We cannot thank her enough! Chi-Miigwech Joanne!

Below is the video we played to introduce our words of the week from "The Water Walker". We wanted to share our focus and we needed to address the word "water". Last year, our students learned that the Ojibwe word for water is biish. In the book, water is nibi. Watch the video to find out how we explained this to our staff and students.

Ojibwe Words of the Week: February

Nibi - water
Nokomis - Grandmother
Nokomis Giizis - Grandmother moon
Jiimaan - Boat or canoe

Click here to access the Ojibwe Words of the Week PDF

Ojibwe Word of the Week: December

This month our words continue with a storytelling focus. We chose words from the Ojibwe story Kiyoshk and the Box.

Kiyoshk - Seagull
Kokoko - Owl
Makak - Box

Click here to access the Ojibwe Words of the Week December PDF.

Ojibwe Word of the Week: November

This month our words of the week are changing from what we were doing the last two months. We started with learning greetings/sayings in Ojibwe, but after two months we are ready for a change. We have decided to learn an Ojibwe story each month and pull words from the story to use as our words of the week. If you'd like to know more about how we decided on this idea, please read our other blog post about meeting with Nancy from the SLNFC. The first Ojibwe story we are going to learn is the story of Turtle Island.

We needed to share why we are switching gears with our school community as well, so we shared why with a clip in our video announcements. We have shared that video as well.

Maang - Loon
Mzhiikenh - Turtle
Nigig - Otter
Zhashkoonh - Muskrat

Click here to access the Ojibwe Word of the Week November Words PDF

Below is the video we shared to explain the new direction for Ojibwe Word of the Week

Words of the Week for November

Ojibwe Word of the Week: October

This month we continued our focus on common phrases that students and teachers can use every day. Our words of the month are:

Baamaapii - See you later/Later on
Wiijkiwenh - Friend
Biindigen - Come in
Gaawii mijda - I'm sorry 

Click here to access the Ojibwe Word of the Week October Words PDF

Ojibwe Word of the Week

One of the ways we wanted to start introducing our students to local indigenous culture and language was through Ojibwe Word of the Week. We worked with Gretchen to decide which words and phrases we could start with in September. We landed on simple phrases like "Hello/Boozhoo" and "Thank You/Miigwech". At P.E. McGibbon we have video announcements, so we created short videos to share the Word of the Week (We used Apple Clips to create our videos). Each week we have an Ojibwe language speaker introduce a word on Monday. The rest of the week we have staff or students saying the word on the announcements. It has been an effective way to share Ojibwe with our entire school community.

Some of the teachers in our building were creating word wall cards to put the Ojibwe Word of the Week on their word walls. We wanted to support that process so we created cards to accompany the the videos. Each word card has a QR code on it that links to the Ojibwe language speaker's video. 

Each month we will post our Ojibwe Word of the Week resources to share with other educators looking to introduce Ojibwe into their teaching and learning. 

We recognize that there are different dialects and we have worked with Gretchen and other Ojibwe language speakers to create videos that will support the Ojibwe language spoken in our local area.

Below is an example of a video that is created for a Monday

Below are examples of what is created for the remainder of the week. We use staff and students to create the videos and try to include a pronunciation guide. 

Ojibwe Word of the Week: September

This month we decided to focus on common phrases that students and teachers can use every day. Our words of the month were:

Boozhoo - Hello
Miigwech - Thank You
Enh - Yes
Gaawiin - No

Click here to access the Ojibwe Word of the Week: September PDF