For their Social Studies class they were learning about different parts of communities I guess you could say such as Urban places, Suburban, Rural and First Nations communities(Reserves). The class however, have been more focused on learning about reserves. This is something I found different because I do not remember ever learning about Reserves in Elementary school, I did here about it throughout my Junior High years but never really started to learn about it in-depth until my Grade 12 year when I took Native Studies.
A neat thing my co-op teacher does with her Social Studies class is that she has a First Nations girl in her class that has started trying to learn Cree with one of her friends in the class, so my co-op teacher asks her to teach the class at least 3 new Cree words a week to help her open up more and want to learn, she has even taught the class part of her Jingle Dance which is a type of First Nations dance. After doing this activity for about 20-30 minutes within a matter of second all of the kids just lost 100% of their focus on the subject and she then switched to letting them show us their friendship song they have been learning to sing and create dance moves for. My co-op teacher also used a series of books called “Turtle Island” which talks all about First Nation and their communities in a way children could relate to and understand.
I chose this as a tip because I think it is a interesting way to get student involved in the class and I think using a book series where the children can understand and relate to it is important because they will then want to learn and engage in class.