Orange Shirt Day

 Hello again,

September 30th in Canada is a day of reflection and learning as we acknowledge the suffering and loss of culture of our Indigenous people during years spent in the residential school system.

This year, I learned right along with my two homeschoolers; I think I can say that the vast majority of Canadians my age had no idea that residential schools still existed in our lifetime!  The last school to close was in 1996.

We began our discussion and learning of Orange shirt day a week before September 30.  We began by studying a map of the first indigenous groups to arrive in Canada and discussing the factors affecting where they decided to settle.

After this, we began reading the book Fatty Legs by Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton.  This is a moving book about a young girl of nine and her experience in the residential school in the Northwest Territories in the 1940s. It was heart wrenching and inspired some great discussions.

As we read we marked locations on our map with sticky notes.

On Orange Shirt Day, we read and watched a CBC kids article on the origins of Orange Shirt day.  The girls wrote a 'current event summary' on what they had learned from the article and followed this up with decorating orange paper shirts with ideas on how "every child matters".

We as Canadians have a long way to go in supporting and reconciling with our Indigenous neighbours but reading and learning are first steps we can take here at home.

Blessings,

Jeanette