Online Stories

One of the goals of our project was to have local First Nations community members share oral stories with our classes. We were able to meet that goal and had several rich learning experiences for our students. But we realized that not all of the classes in our schools were able to access the Indigenous voices we were fortunate enough to hear. The next step was to look at books that were written by Indigenous authors. Our hope was to record Indigenous voices reading these books and make them available to everyone in our school communities.  Stolen Words below:

Nicole Gooding, teacher at P.E. McGibbon Public School in LKDSB reads "Stolen Words" by Melanie Florence

Orange Shirt Day Resources

Orange Shirt Day is a day to honour the survivors of the Canadian residential school system and remember those who never returned. In the weeks leading up to Orange Shirt Day both of our schools participated in a variety of activities to help support student and educator understanding of the residential school system and why we wear orange on September 30.

Our team created a list of resources to share with teachers in our buildings. We curated websites, found photos/videos to use as provocations, and found virtual and hard copies of picture books. Click here to access the PDF with links and information we shared with our teachers for Orange Shirt Day 2018. 

Picture Books

These are some of the books that were read to students throughout our schools. Chantima and Jen teach primary grades and used these books to help their student's understand the impact residential schools had on indigenous children and their families. 

When I Was Eight by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton 

Not My Girl by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton

Stolen Words by Melanie Florence

Shi-Shi-Etko by Nicola Campbell

Shin-Chi's Canoe by Nicola Campbell

One of the challenges of reading picture books in a large school is having enough copies for everyone! We included some YouTube links to picture books in our resources list, but some of them were not quite what we were looking for. We would love to have some of these books read by local indigenous community members. Stay tuned! 

We did find some of the books on TumbleBooks and the app epic! If you use app epic! in your classroom, there is a small selection of books you can share with your students and you should check them out! We created a collection for Orange Shirt Day and shared it with our staffs. 

Orange Shirt Day Video

Our school board shares an announcement about Orange Shirt Day that can be shared in schools. Since our school has video announcements, we created a video using images from OrangeShirtDay.org. This video was an effective way to share Phyllis Webstad's story and the origins of Orange Shirt Day with everyone in our school community.