Building Belonging & Growing Literacy Skills Through First Peoples Principles of Learning

On our February 14^th Pro D Day, our staff came together to explore connections in our teaching through story. We explored our key values, how our collective values show up in our work and help us identify our collective purpose. We spent time exploring a hexagonal thinking routine and applying this routine to Indigenous children’s stories. We worked in groups to read, connect, share and explore a variety of Indigenous texts. We spent time thinking about how we can continue to strengthen social emotional learning and literacy skills through story.

For the second half of our Pro-D Day, we worked on developing a Family Teams activity centered around kindness incorporating Indigenous texts, time in circle and opportunities to build literacy skills in collaborative multi age groups.

Some of the values/key words shared among staff-after reading stories and working with the thinking routine include:

Respect

Multi-generational

Identity

Stories

Tradition

Ritual

Belonging

Family

Land

Kindness

Please see the photo highlights from our Professional Learning session and from our school Family Teams event