☕️ Busy? Here's the TL;DR
- Indigenous Peoples' Day is celebrated on Monday, October 11
- We put together a school newsletter template with resources!
- Find an explanation of the day and how it came about
- Read beautiful poems with pics to illustrate them
- Find a treasure trove of lesson plans & activities
- Explore everything about land acknowledgements
The 2nd Monday in October is both Columbus Day & Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Whichever holiday your school celebrates, we've put together a school newsletter template with resources for communicating the differences. It also offers activities, blog posts, lesson plans, and videos for learning about the indigenous tribes who were the first inhabitants of our continent and whose ancestors walk among us still.
You can check it out here!
What's in the template?
The template kicks off with an article that explains the history of the commemorative day and the shift in approach.
After that, we've got a photo gallery illustrating the opening verse of a poem by Native American poet heid Erdrich, with a link to a lot more poems for students by Native poets.
After that you're going to find two really comprehensive posts filled with classroom resources and activities related to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, one from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. You can't miss with these two!
Lastly, land acknowledgments.
The final section of the template focuses on land acknowledgments. What a land acknowledgment is for, how to find out which tribe used to inhabit the area you live in now, and how to write one. Teaching students of all ages about writing and offering up a land acknowledgment builds their communication skills, as well as their sense of moral responsibility and understanding of the complexity of historical narrative.
Happy teaching!