Educator Resources

It's never too early to start teaching children their First Nations language, and Anishinaabe ABC Mazina'igan is a great tool to assist with learning.

This book is the second in a series by Language Facilitator, Wanda Barker. It is a great tool to assist with learning the Ojibwe language. Anishinaabe ABC Mazina’igan is filled with beautiful illustrations, Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwe sentences and their English translations. The images can serve as a starting point for discussion of the cultural relevancy of the sentences associated with each letter.

This book can be used by students, parents and teachers, young and old.  It is written in the double vowel writing system and is intended to show the sequence of the Ojibwe alphabet.  The images can serve as a starting point for discussion of the cultural relevancy of the sentences associated with each letter.

Educator Information
This book is written in the Ojibwe language with a glossary at the back in Ojibwe and English. It is useful for anyone wanting to learn the Ojibwe language. 

It’s never too early to start teaching children their First Nations language, and Anishinaabemowin Alphabet is the perfect place to begin. This book is filled with beautifully shaded illustrations, Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwe words and their English translations, and it can be used by students, parents and teachers young and old. It is written in the double vowel writing system and is intended to show the sequence of the Ojibwe alphabet. The images can serve as a starting point for discussion of the cultural relevancy of the word associated with each letter.

Educator Information
This book is written in the Ojibwe language.  An English translation for each word is provided at the back of the book.

The publisher recommends this book for children or anyone learning the Ojibwe language.

6 essential steps to foster the will to read

Introducing a 6-step approach for cultivating and growing complete readers who have the will to read! You'll learn how to help your students understand the value of reading, intimately know who they are as readers, and receive joy and pleasure from text. From sharing your reading life to getting to know your students to modelling the habits of a reader, you will find strategies to use to set the foundation for a classroom of enthusiastic readers. Powerful classroom anecdotes and ready-to-use reproducible activities support this highly readable book.

This beautifully illustrated book teaches the language of the Tahltan nation. The Tahltan alphabet is featured with the 47 sounds of the Tahltan language. Learners can match vowels, consonants and sounds to English equivalents and symbols. It is a resource for those who can already speak Tahltan, but wish to learn to read and write as well.

From the Preface:
The (Tahltan) Alphabet was developed by linguist Colin Carter in consultation with Tahltan speakers, Elders and language instructors...The (Tahltan) Alphabet...is phonetic, which means that every Tahltan sound is written with consistent symbols. This is different from the English alphabet where sounds can be written with various letters and combinations of them. The Tahltan alphabet is a summation of the 47 sounds of the Tahltan language. Carter and the Tahltan consultants decided to use English letters and represent specialized Tahltan sounds with more than one letter (eg dz, tl, ch) and other markings such as underlining, apostrophe and macron.

Educator Information
Recommended for Grades K-7 English Language Arts and courses in Indigenous language learning.

This book was coordinated by Edosdi Dr. Judy Thompson, developed by language leaders Angela Dennis, Regina Louis and Odelia Dennis, and illustrated by Una-Ann Moyer, Perer Morin and Tsema Igharas. The Telegraph Creek / Dease Lake dialect was contributed by Dah Dzahge Nodeside chair, Hostelma Pauline Hawkins in collaboration with fluent speakers Margery Inkster and Janet Vance from Telegraph Creek, BC. This book is produced with the intention to inspire future generations of Tahltan speakers and aid in Tahltan cultural sustainability.

Dr. Judy Thompson is an Assistant Professor in First Nations Studies at the University of Northern BC. Odelia Dennis teaches Tahltan as a second language to adults through the University of Victoria's Diploma in Indigenous Language Revitalization Program.

Additional Information
108 pages | 9.00" x 8.50" | colour and b&w drawings

downstream: reimagining water brings together artists, writers, scientists, scholars, environmentalists, and activists who understand that our shared human need for clean water is crucial to building peace and good relationships with one another and the planet. This book explores the key roles that culture, arts, and the humanities play in supporting healthy water-based ecology and provides local, global, and Indigenous perspectives on water that help to guide our societies in a time of global warming. The contributions range from practical to visionary, and each of the four sections closes with a poem to encourage personal freedom along with collective care.

This book contributes to the formation of an intergenerational, culturally inclusive, participatory water ethic. Such an ethic arises from intellectual courage, spiritual responsibilities, practical knowledge, and deep appreciation for human dependence on water for a meaningful quality of life. downstream illuminates how water teaches us interdependence with other humans and living creatures, both near and far.

Reviews
"Downstream stakes out a bold and creative claim to collaborative and cross-cultural eco-spiritual-neo-traditional knowing and, with it, new approaches to policy and action. A timely read that lends depth and resonance to some of the material and voices [in other books on the subject]." — Heather Menzies, Literary Review of Canada, June 2017

"This rich collection brings together the work of artists, writers, scientists, scholars, environmentalists, and activists, all focusing on the looming global water crisis. ... Writing styles vary from piece to piece throughout the book—poetic, personal, journalistic, and academic—but the shifts between each are well worth navigating for any reader interested in human futures on Earth."— Publishers Weekly, August 2017

"This collection of works successfully expands our knowledge of and experience with water by merging natural science, social science, arts, and humanities approaches to water. It offers new, innovative, and engaging ways to think about and experience water, especially as it relates to life and vitality."— Sara Beth Keough, American Review of Canadian Studies, November -0001

Educator Information
This collection of essays is useful for these course/subject areas or topics: Language Arts & Disciplines; Creative Writing; Indigenous Studies; Poetry; Environmental Studies; Environmental Humanities.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Re-storying Waters, Re-storying Relations / Rita Wong and Dorothy Christian

Part I: Contexts for Knowing and Unknowing Water
1. Planetary Distress Signals / Alanna Mitchell
2. Water / Lee Maracle
3. Interweaving Water: The Incremental Transformation of Sovereign Knowledge into Collaborative Knowledge / Michael D. Blackstock
4. Water and Knowledge / Astrida Neimanis
5. Excerpts from “a child’s fable” / Baco Ohama

Part II: Water Testimonies: Witness, Worry, and Work
6. Water: The First Foundation of Life / Mona Polacca
7. From Our Homelands to the Tar Sands / Melina Laboucan Massimo
8. Keepers of the Water: Nishnaabe-kwewag Speaking for the Water / Renee Elizabeth Mzinegiizhigo-kwe Bedard
9. Water Walk Pedagogy / Violet Caibaiosai
10. A Response to Pascua Lama / Cecilia Vicuna

Part III: Shared Ethical and Embodied Practices
11. Moving with Water: Relationship and Responsibilities / Alannah Young Leon and Denise Marie Nadeau
12. Bodies of Water: Meaning in Movement / Seonagh Odhiambo Horne
13. Upstream: A Conversation with Water / Cathy Stubington
14. Ice Receding, Books Reseeding / Basia Irland
15. Tsunami Chant / Wang Ping

Part IV: A Respectful Co-existence in Common: Water Perspectives
16. Listening to the Elders at the Keepers of the Water Gathering /Radha D’Souza
17. Coastal Waters in Distress from Excessive Nutrients / Paul J. Harrison
18. Bodies of Water: Asian Canadians In/Action with Water /Janey Lew
19. Permeable Toronto: A Hydro-Eutopia / Janine MacLeod
20. Saturate/Dissolve: Water for Itself, Un-Settler Responsibilities, and Radical Humility / Larissa Lai
21. Bring Me Back / Janet Rogers

Additional Information
300 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" 

Hands-On Science and Technology: An Inquiry Approach is filled with a year’s worth of classroom-tested activity-based lesson plans. The grade 2 book is divided into four units based on the current Ontario curriculum for science and technology:

- Growth and Changes in Animals
- Movement
- Properties of Liquids and Solids
- Air and Water in the Environment

This new edition includes many familiar great features for both teachers and students: curriculum correlation charts; background information on the science and technology topics; complete, easy-to-follow lesson plans; reproducible student materials; materials lists; and hands-on, student-centred activities.

Useful new features include:
- the components of an inquiry-based scientific and technological approach
- Indigenous knowledge and perspective embedded in lesson plans
- a four-part instructional process—activate, action, consolidate and debrief, and enhance
- an emphasis on technology, sustainability, and differentiated instruction
- a fully developed assessment plan that includes opportunities for assessment for, as, and of learning
- a focus on real-life technological problem solving
- learning centres that focus on multiple intelligences and universal design for learning (UDL)
- land-based learning activities
- a bank of science-related images

Educator& Series Information
This book is from the Hands-On Science: An Inquiry Approach (for Ontario) series.

Recommended for grade 2.

Includes some Indigenous content/perspectives from Indigenous Consultant Kevin Reed.

Additional Information

Students who study business in university are not likely to hear about or discuss examples of Indigenous business successes from across the country. Rarely would one see references to Aboriginal communities, let alone examples of them growing multi-million dollar businesses and partnering to lead innovative economic development projects that positively impact the national economy. Resources are scarce and inadequate, an oversight that is to our detriment.

Somewhere between a textbook and a book of collected essays, this collection of articles is an effort to build on and share the research of Aboriginal practitioners and scholars working in their respective fields. Where possible we share not only concepts, but also the voices of Aboriginal leaders, officials, Elders and other members of Aboriginal communities.

Indigenous Business in Canada addresses contemporary concerns and issues in the doing of Indigenous business in Canada, reveals some of the challenges and diverse approaches to business in Aboriginal contexts from coast to coast to coast, and demonstrates the direct impact that history and policy, past and present, have on business and business education.

Reviews
“Indigenous Business in Canada: Principles and Practices should serve as a conscious raiser for business education students and professionals working in housing, business, banking and other economic-development industries and support their ability to adapt to the growing importance of Aboriginal communities and business to the global economy.” -- Nelson & Waugh, Canadian Journal of Education, 2016

Educator Information
This textbook would be useful for courses in Business & Economics, Economic Development, Government & Business, and Indigenous Studies.

Additional Information
312 pages | 7.50" x 9.00

Edited by Keith G. Brown, Mary Beth Doucette, and Janice Esther Tulk.

Across Canada, teachers unfamiliar with Aboriginal approaches to learning are seeking ways to respectfully weave Aboriginal content into their lessons. This book introduces an indigenist approach to education. It recounts how pre-service teachers immersed in a cross-cultural course in British Columbia began to practise Indigenous ways of knowing. Working alongside Indigenous wisdom keepers, they transformed earth fibres into a mural and, in the process, their own ideas about learning and teaching. By revealing how they worked to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing into their practice, this book opens a path for teachers to nurture indigenist cross-cultural understanding in their classrooms.

Reviews
"Teachers in British Columbia and throughout Canada who struggle with how to enact curriculum changes that incorporate Indigenous knowledge, history, and identity will find this book illuminating … in spite of the seemingly overwhelming challenges in making a space for Indigenous thought and experience, it can and must be done. The transformation has been happening and is continuing." — Michael Marker, BC Studies, no. 196, Winter 2017/18

"… Indigenous educators and allies will find this text inspirational, hopeful, and useful."  — Alma M. O. Trinidad, School of Social Work, Portland State University, Great Plains Research, April 2018

Additional Information
260 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

Committed to embracing the power of oral language, Literacy Out Loud recognizes the important role "talk" plays in developing the reading and writing abilities that students need in school and beyond. The book offers strategies where oral language takes centre stage and is fostered through engaging activities. Literacy activities and events focus on all aspects of listening and speaking, and emphasize enjoyable, purposeful, social learning. The book argues that listening and speaking, or "talk," is at the heart of a vibrant classroom. It shows teachers how to nurture dynamic classroom talk that is essential in its own right, and makes all learning possible.

How can teachers best create a lively social network of literacy learning where talk is the foundation? How can classroom talk be encouraged and guided so that students become fluent and effective oral communicators? This book proposes everyday activities that will answer these questions, and many more.

Educator Information
The book offers strategies where oral language takes center stage and is fostered through engaging activities in K–8 classrooms. Literacy activities and events focus on all aspects of listening and speaking and emphasize enjoyable, purposeful, social learning.

Grade Range: K-8

Additional Information
128 pages | 8.40" x 10.80"

Maththatmatters Volume 2 gets to the very root of what education is about: giving students the tools to better understand their world and facilitate positive social change. David Stocker's groundbreaking work provides educators and students with timely and engaging lesson plans, designed for grades 6-9, using math to teach about social justice in a way that is both accessible and powerful.

Reviews
"Maththatmatters brings together math and social justice, in a way that makes them both more compelling, and the world a little more understandable." — Linda McQuaig, author

"Actually, I have never understood math better. Not only do I understand the general skill, I can also begin to understand the world better. And if I understand the world better I can change things. And knowing that is one of the best things in the entire world. There is no way to describe that feeling." — Xochil, student

Additional Information
320 pages | 8.50" x 11.00"

The second edition of Natural Curiosity supports a stronger basic awareness of Indigenous perspectives and their importance to environmental education. The driving motivation for a second edition was the burning need, in the wake of strong and unequivocal recommendations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to situate Indigenous perspectives into the heart of Canadian educational settings and curricula, most notably in connection with environmental issues.

The Indigenous lens in this edition represents a cross-cultural encounter supporting what can become an ongoing dialogue and evolution of practice in environmental inquiry. Some important questions are raised that challenge us to think in very different ways about things as fundamental as the meaning of knowledge.

New in the Second Edition: Revision of the four branches of environmental inquiry (Lorraine Chiarotto), by Julie Comay; Indigenous lenses on each of the branches by Doug Anderson; 16 new educator stories.

Reviews
"Natural Curiosity 2nd Edition is an excellent resource for educators seeking to act as co-inquirers with their students and share the learning spirit while fostering relationship with our natural kin and relations. With a newly expanded lens on Indigenous perspectives and worldviews, this resource encourages teachers with philosophies, rationales, tools and activities to help them grow ecological and social justice citizens. A timely resource and highly recommended." -- Jean-Paul Restoule

"In Natural Curiosity 2nd Edition, Western ways of relating to nature intermingle with Indigenous ways. The book respects the integrity of both coexisting cultural perspectives. By understanding both, readers and their students will gain greater curiosity and deeper insights to make sense of the world around them or to solve problems." -Dr Glen S Aikenhead

Additional Information
284 pages | 8.40" x 10.90" | 2nd Edition

Nature based classrooms are powerful programs that seamlessly merge early childhood and environmental education to develop a lifelong connection with the natural world. This book is for preschool and primary educators who are thinking about adding a nature component to their current program and for those who have started to take their students outside and are looking for more information to run a successful and safe outdoor program. This user-friendly book provides guidance on how to organize, manage and resource a nature early learning program.

Indigenous scholars have been gathering, speaking, and writing about Indigenous knowledge for decades. These knowledges are grounded in ancient traditions and very old pedagogies that have been woven with the tangled strings and chipped beads of colonial relations.

Pathways for Remembering and Recognizing Indigenous Thought in Education is an exploration into some of the shared cross-cultural themes that inform and shape Indigenous thought and Indigenous educational philosophy. These philosophies generate tensions, challenges, and contradictions that can become very tangled and messy when considered within the context of current educational systems that reinforce colonial power relations. Sandra D. Styres shows how Indigenous thought can inform decolonizing approaches in education as well as the possibilities for truly transformative teaching practices. This book offers new pathways for remembering, conceptualizing and understanding these ancient knowledges and philosophies within a twenty-first century educational context.

Additional Information
248 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" 

Do you feel exhausted after guided reading? Are you working tirelessly while your students aren't even breaking a sweat? Do you ever wonder if other teachers feel the same way you do about guided reading — that it's not working the way it should?

This thoughtful resource has everything you need to prevent guided reading from going astray in your classroom. The authors draw on 50 years of collective experience to present clarifications, adaptations, and supports that have helped them work their own trick parts as they guide readers. The book's 6 chapters each clarify a misunderstanding about a key area of the guided reading process. With 27 strategies, you're sure to find the help you need to work through your own challenges as you guide groups of readers.

Educator Information
Grade Range: K-5

Additional Information
130 pages | 7.00" x 9.20"

Read, Listen, Tell brings together an extraordinary range of Indigenous stories from across Turtle Island (North America). From short fiction to as-told-to narratives, from illustrated stories to personal essays, these stories celebrate the strength of heritage and the liveliness of innovation. Ranging in tone from humorous to defiant to triumphant, the stories explore core concepts in Indigenous literary expression, such as the relations between land, language, and community, the variety of narrative forms, and the continuities between oral and written forms of expression. Rich in insight and bold in execution, the stories proclaim the diversity, vitality, and depth of Indigenous writing.

Building on two decades of scholarly work to centre Indigenous knowledges and perspectives, the book transforms literary method while respecting and honouring Indigenous histories and peoples of these lands. It includes stories by acclaimed writers like Thomas King, Sherman Alexie, Paula Gunn Allen, and Eden Robinson, a new generation of emergent writers, and writers and storytellers who have often been excluded from the canon, such as French- and Spanish-language Indigenous authors, Indigenous authors from Mexico, Chicana/o authors, Indigenous-language authors, works in translation, and "lost" or underappreciated texts.

In a place and time when Indigenous people often have to contend with representations that marginalize or devalue their intellectual and cultural heritage, this collection is a testament to Indigenous resilience and creativity. It shows that the ways in which we read, listen, and tell play key roles in how we establish relationships with one another, and how we might share knowledges across cultures, languages, and social spaces.

Reviews
Edited by experts in Indigenous literature and contextualised beautifully, historical writers like E. Pauline Johnson are placed alongside exciting genres like Indigenous Science Fiction — illustrating the vibrancy and innovation of Indigenous storytelling across time, space and politics. If you want a primer on Indigenous cultural expressions, this is for you. If you want deft, detailed stories in Indigenous written, oral and graphic traditions, these will expand your thinking. Read, Listen, Tell will make you laugh, dream and search for more. — Niigaanwewidam Sinclair

A unique compendium that is the direct result of outstanding and painstaking scholarship, Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island is an impressively informative, deftly organized, and exceptionally well presented volume that is unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Indigenous Cultural Studies collections and supplemental reading lists. — Midwest Book Review

Read, Listen, Tell collects a brilliant and vast array of indigenous short fiction, bolstered by insightful critical essays that prioritize indigenous voices, culture, and methodologies. — Clarissa Goldsmith, Foreword Reviews, July 2017

Educator Information
• Connects Indigenous writing across colonial settler borders (of Canada, USA, and Mexico) at a time when those borders are hardening in light of security measures.
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission report highlights focus on education, prioritizing Indigenous knowledges, pedagogies, and perspectives—this book provides that.
• Provides curriculum material for new Indigenous content mandates in some provinces (Ontario, BC).
• Includes French-, Spanish-, and Indigenous-language.
• Indigenous authors (in translation).

Additional Information
410 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"
Edited by Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, David Gaertner, and Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill