From the League of Canadian Poets:

The League of Canadian Poets invites you to celebrate the 25th National Poetry Month this April 2023 with the theme of joy. 

What will you read this National Poetry Month?  Will you start your own poetry writing project? Will you write your first poem?

What does JOY mean to you?

1. Selections from: Tea and Bannock Stories: First Nations Community of Poetic Voices (Simon Fraser University, First Nations Studies. Compiled by annie ross, Brandon Bob, Eve Chuang and the Chuang Family, Steve Davis, Robert Pictou)

2. Selections from Poetry Foundation: Poetry for Children

Ideas for Teachers: (from the League of Canadian Poets)

Poetry Play Stations

Poetry play stations use different techniques to encourage young readers to craft poems. Here are some great stations to include:

Erasure poetry: Using a page of existing text, use a black marker to complete cross out sections of the text — the words or phrases that remain can be strung together to form an original poem! Part of the beauty of erasure poem is how the entire page looks when completed, blacked-out sections and all.  Try it with a newspaper article!

Found poetry: Found poetry is very similar to erasure poetry — well, erasure poetry is a kind of found poetry — but with a little more freedom. Again using an existing text, participants select words or phrases from the text that they think will make a great poem: using the found words and phrases, they can play with line breaks, stanzas, and other ways of construction an original poem from the found text!

Book spine poetry: This is a great poetic experiment that takes over Twitter every April — using as few as three or as many as… well, as many as you can stack, create a poem using the titles of books as they appear on the spines. These make excellent photos and are great for sharing!

Magnet poetry: A classic! Choosing words from a pile of individual words to string together an original poem. This could be from a magnetic poetry set, but you could also simply prepare an assortment of words for participants to choose from.” (Source: League of Canadian Poets)

• Events, toolkit and resources can be found here https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2023/

Earth Day Stories:

Tumblebooks: (access via Learn75, no password required)

What happens when one small boy picks up one small piece of litter? He doesn’t know it, but his tiny act has big consequences. From the miniscule to the universal, What Matters sensitively explores nature’s connections and traces the ripple effects of one child’s good deed to show how we can all make a big difference.

You Are Stardust begins by introducing the idea that every tiny atom in our bodies came from a star that exploded long before we were born. From its opening pages, the book suggests that we are intimately connected to the natural world; it compares the way we learn to speak to the way baby birds learn to sing, and the growth of human bodies to the growth of forests. This innovative picture book aims to reintroduce children to their innate relationship with the world around them by sharing many of the surprising ways that we are all connected to the natural world.

Wild Ideas looks deep into the forests, skies and oceans to explore how animals solve problems. Whether it’s weaving a safe place to rest and reflect, blowing a fine net of bubbles to trap fish, or leaping boldly into a new situation, the animals featured (including the orangutan, humpback whale and gibbon) can teach us a lot about creative problem solving tools and strategies. Wild Ideas encourages an inquiry-based approach to learning, inviting readers to indulge their sense of wonder and curiosity by observing the natural world, engaging with big ideas and asking questions.

Articles  and Activity Ideas from CBC Kids:

“Have a Heart Day is a child and youth-led reconciliation campaign that brings together caring Canadians to help ensure First Nations children have the services they need to grow up safely at home, get a good education, be healthy, and be proud of who they are.

Watch “End the Gap – Fair Funding For First Nations Schools”

Activity Ideas:

• Send a Valentine’s Day card to the Prime Minister or your MP.
• Click here for a link to a letter in English and French.

• Colouring Sheet
• Colouring Sheets 2 &3 
• Snow Bear Activity
• Bearcipe Cards
• Host a Valentine’s Day party to raise awareness in your school or community. Choose a day leading up to Valentine’s Day that makes sense for your class or community. Click here for a link to a poster you can use.

• Spread the word through social media like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Use the hashtag #HaveaHeartDay and/or #JourneeAyezUnCoeur.

Explore the Have a Heart Day website to download Have a Heart Day resources.

Through activities like Have a Heart Day, we are creating a movement where the landscape of Canada is only one of honour and possibility for First Nations children.”

FNCFCS also shared this music video by N’we Jinan Artists “Important to Us”, written and performed by students at Pierre Elliot Trudeau School.

Their message is inspiring:

“No matter where you’re from,

let’s fill our home with colour and love.”

Teachers: More resources are available here

• Borrow Spirit Bear books by Cindy Blackstock from your school or Siwal Si’wes Library.
• Follow Cindy Blackstock on Twitter (Cindy Blackstock @cblackst) and/or F.N. Caring Society on Twitter(F.N. Caring Society @Caringsociety)
• Explore the Have a Heart Day website to download Have a Heart Day resources.

“Today our diversity is becoming more visible than ever as people continue to embrace their cultures, identities, and true selves in more open and direct ways; making the need to Lift Each Other Up and have greater acceptance, respect, and inclusion for everyone so important. This year we are asking you to join us in celebrating our diversity while raising funds to support inclusive anti-bullying programs for kids in our communities.”  (https://www.pinkshirtday.ca/)

Where did Pink Shirt Day come from?

In 2007 in Nova Scotia, Grade 12 students David Shepherd, Travis Price and a few friends saw that a grade 9 student was being bullied for wearing a pink shirt on the first day of school.

They knew they had to do something to show that this kind of behavior was not okay.

They decided to go out and buy pink shirts and hand them out to other students to wear.

By the end of that week, most of the students in the school were wearing pink shirts to show support for the grade 9 student who was bullied.

On February 23rd, wear something pink to show that we are all working together to erase bullying in our community.

Resources:

• Resource: “What is Pink Shirt Day?” (Kids CBC article)
• Activity: Think about this prompt:

Book recommendations:

(Educator/Family guide also available.)

Additional Resources: Make it Count Activities

Additional Resources

Joyful Literacy Family Literacy Activities:

(developed by Dr. Janet Mort)

• Echo Reading
• Paired Reading
• Come Alive Reading

Early Learning Families: Check out the Early Learning Page on Curriculum Connections for creative family activities developed by MPSD’s StrongStart Team

Additional Resources:

• Educational Resources (activities, lessons, posters, bookmarks in English and French)
• 50 Ways to Remember 
• 50 Façons de se Souvenir 
• 2020 Home Learning: Second World War 
• Link to Indigenous-Canadian Veterans information (Indigenous Veterans Day is November 8th)
• Information about and significance of the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument

• Interactive Activity: (Ages 10+)

Over the Top: An Interactive Adventure

“An activity created by the Canadian War Museum to help students understand the First World War from a soldier’s perspective. The activity’s interactive nature and its animation-based format will appeal to younger students. Includes a glossary of terms. (Recommended for ages 10 and up.)”

Tumblebooks: (access via Learn75, no password required)

What happens when one small boy picks up one small piece of litter? He doesn’t know it, but his tiny act has big consequences. From the miniscule to the universal, What Matters sensitively explores nature’s connections and traces the ripple effects of one child’s good deed to show how we can all make a big difference.

You Are Stardust begins by introducing the idea that every tiny atom in our bodies came from a star that exploded long before we were born. From its opening pages, the book suggests that we are intimately connected to the natural world; it compares the way we learn to speak to the way baby birds learn to sing, and the growth of human bodies to the growth of forests. This innovative picture book aims to reintroduce children to their innate relationship with the world around them by sharing many of the surprising ways that we are all connected to the natural world.

Wild Ideas looks deep into the forests, skies and oceans to explore how animals solve problems. Whether it’s weaving a safe place to rest and reflect, blowing a fine net of bubbles to trap fish, or leaping boldly into a new situation, the animals featured (including the orangutan, humpback whale and gibbon) can teach us a lot about creative problem solving tools and strategies. Wild Ideas encourages an inquiry-based approach to learning, inviting readers to indulge their sense of wonder and curiosity by observing the natural world, engaging with big ideas and asking questions.

Articles  and Activity Ideas from CBC Kids:

From the League of Canadian Poets:

The League of Canadian Poets invites you to celebrate the 24nd National Poetry Month this April 2022 with the theme of intimacy. 

This National Poetry Month, we invite you to celebrate with the theme of INTIMACY.

We crave it. We fear it. We are ready to build walls against it and dive headfirst into its open arms. Intimacy is the closeness we feel with those who love us, given freely through warm hugs. It’s a shared laugh or glance between strangers, a moment of comfort in an anonymous world.

What will you read this National Poetry Month?  Will you start your own poetry writing project? Will you write your first poem?

1. Selections from: Tea and Bannock Stories: First Nations Community of Poetic Voices (Simon Fraser University, First Nations Studies. Compiled by annie ross, Brandon Bob, Eve Chuang and the Chuang Family, Steve Davis, Robert Pictou)

2. Selections from Poetry Foundation: Poetry for Children

Ideas for Teachers: (from the League of Canadian Poets)

Poetry Play Stations

Poetry play stations use different techniques to encourage young readers to craft poems. Here are some great stations to include:

Erasure poetry: Using a page of existing text, use a black marker to complete cross out sections of the text — the words or phrases that remain can be strung together to form an original poem! Part of the beauty of erasure poem is how the entire page looks when completed, blacked-out sections and all.  Try it with a newspaper article!

Found poetry: Found poetry is very similar to erasure poetry — well, erasure poetry is a kind of found poetry — but with a little more freedom. Again using an existing text, participants select words or phrases from the text that they think will make a great poem: using the found words and phrases, they can play with line breaks, stanzas, and other ways of construction an original poem from the found text!

Book spine poetry: This is a great poetic experiment that takes over Twitter every April — using as few as three or as many as… well, as many as you can stack, create a poem using the titles of books as they appear on the spines. These make excellent photos and are great for sharing!

Magnet poetry: A classic! Choosing words from a pile of individual words to string together an original poem. This could be from a magnetic poetry set, but you could also simply prepare an assortment of words for participants to choose from.” (Source: League of Canadian Poets)

“Today our diversity is becoming more visible than ever as people continue to embrace their cultures, identities, and true selves in more open and direct ways; making the need to Lift Each Other Up and have greater acceptance, respect, and inclusion for everyone so important. This year we are asking you to join us in celebrating our diversity while raising funds to support inclusive anti-bullying programs for kids in our communities.”  (https://www.pinkshirtday.ca/)

Where did Pink Shirt Day come from?

In 2007 in Nova Scotia, Grade 12 students David Shepherd, Travis Price and a few friends saw that a grade 9 student was being bullied for wearing a pink shirt on the first day of school.

They knew they had to do something to show that this kind of behavior was not okay.

They decided to go out and buy pink shirts and hand them out to other students to wear.

By the end of that week, most of the students in the school were wearing pink shirts to show support for the grade 9 student who was bullied.

On February 23rd, wear something pink to show that we are all working together to erase bullying in our community.

Resources:

• Resource: “What is Pink Shirt Day?” (Kids CBC article)
• Activity: Think about this prompt:

Book recommendations:

(Educator/Family guide also available.)

“Have a Heart Day is a child and youth-led reconciliation campaign that brings together caring Canadians to help ensure First Nations children have the services they need to grow up safely at home, get a good education, be healthy, and be proud of who they are.

Watch “End the Gap – Fair Funding For First Nations Schools”

Activity Ideas:

• Send a Valentine’s Day card to the Prime Minister or your MP.
• Click here for a link to a letter in English and French.

• Colouring Sheet
• Colouring Sheets 2 &3 
• Snow Bear Activity
• Bearcipe Cards
• Host a socially distanced Valentine’s Day party to raise awareness in your school or community. Choose a day leading up to Valentine’s Day that makes sense for your class or community. Click here for a link to a poster you can use.

• Spread the word through social media like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Use the hashtag #HaveaHeartDay and/or #JourneeAyezUnCoeur.

Explore the Have a Heart Day website to download Have a Heart Day resources.

Through activities like Have a Heart Day, we are creating a movement where the landscape of Canada is only one of honour and possibility for First Nations children.”

FNCFCS also shared this music video by N’we Jinan Artists “Important to Us”, written and performed by students at Pierre Elliot Trudeau School.

Their message is inspiring:

“No matter where you’re from,

let’s fill our home with colour and love.”

Teachers: More resources are available here

• Borrow Spirit Bear books by Cindy Blackstock from your school or Siwal Si’wes Library.
• Follow Cindy Blackstock on Twitter (Cindy Blackstock @cblackst) and/or F.N. Caring Society on Twitter(F.N. Caring Society @Caringsociety)
• Explore the Have a Heart Day website to download Have a Heart Day resources.