First Nations Perspectives
CGS Recognizes Truth and Reconciliation: Orange Shirt Day
In recent years, Canada has made significant strides towards acknowledging and addressing the painful history of Indigenous Peoples in our country. One important step in this journey is the annual national observation of Orange Shirt Day, a day dedicated to recognizing the intergenerational impact of residential schools on Indigenous communities. At CGS, Orange Shirt Day…
Read MoreCGS Alumni Visit from Sunnybrook!
It always brings such joy when we have visitors to our school. Even more joy to our staff and community when they happen to be CGS Alumni! Today our grade 2-4 students had an informative visit from 3 of Sunnybrook School’s graduating grade 6 students. Two of the students were CGS Alumni who graduated in…
Read MoreOur classrooms this week
Early Start To wrap up their Black History Month learning, the Early Start listened to two wonderful stories this week. ‘I am Enough’ by Grace Byers is a beautiful story teaching us that although we are all different, we are enough. In the story ‘Hair Love’ by Matthew A. Cherry tells the story of a…
Read MoreCanada History Week
November 22-26 marked Canada History Week. This year’s theme is Indigenous History. Our CGS classrooms spent time talking and learning about the history of Indigenous persons in Canada. Senior Kindergarten The SK class talked about the many things that are part of our everyday life that are from Indigenous origins. Each student created a collection…
Read MoreTake Me Outside Day
Wednesday, October 20 was CGS’ first Take Me Outside Day. We were excited to join 350,000 students across the province for outdoor education to honour Indigenous culture. We started the day with our Land Acknowledgment. Acknowledgements are a way for non-Indigenous Canadians to recognize that these lands are the traditional territories of Indigenous people in Canada. Indigenous…
Read MoreOrange Shirt Day
It was tremendous to see the CGS community embrace all aspects of Indigenous learning with open hearts and open minds. Many students reflected on the importance of truth and integrity by wearing their orange shirts representing that Every Child Matters and creating a heart for hope. These creations were landscaped on the front lawn on…
Read MoreWhen We Were Alone
The Grade 2/3’s have been reviewing their Indigenous Perspectives lessons this week. They started off with vocabulary and what Indigenous means, remembering that the term includes three groups of people – the Métis, First Nations and Inuit. They talked about what they learned about Residential Schools during Orange Shirt Day earlier in the school year.…
Read MoreAmazing AGO Journeys for SK
The SK’s have been very busy over the last several weeks learning amazing new things about Art & Culture from the AGO. They’ve had three extremely enriching and engaging workshops – Art and the Environment, Art and the Senses and, most recently, Indigenous Art and Artists. This last session was perfectly timed for the start…
Read MoreFirst Nations Perspectives
A huge thank you to the ROM and their Indigenous Voices program for the excellent webinar the SK’s attended on Tuesday. The SK’s were there along with 15,025 other students across Ontario! Students tuned in to learn about First Nations perspectives on family, art and the transformative power of dance. J’net started off the teachings…
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