Our school’s afternoon professional development session on November 20^th included a modelled lesson on how we might teach children in our care to better understand and better “develop a relationship” with the land acknowledgement. Using Hands-on learning and an SEL Lens, one of our teacher's led this session for all staff as a follow up to our September 29th Indigenous Pro-D session. We now have other staff members trying this with their students.

Rooted in the teachings of Understanding the Land Acknowledgement (York University, 2019), the lesson included a guided visualization of a favourite local place, loose parts and natural materials to “re-create” the special place, and an intentional look into the words included in our District’s land acknowledgement. The creations were documented with photos and later used as inspiration to create their own personalized and “unscripted” traditional territory land acknowledgements.

Our district consultant, Connie Easton, also noted how these “places” are also a “sacred space” to go to in their minds to foster a sense of calm and self-regulation when needed.