Students at Reed Ranch School east of Olds learned many valuable lessons during the first-ever First Nations Culture Celebration day at the K-6 school on May 26, say officials.
“I liked learning about all the cultures that they have,” said Ryan Krause, a Grade 4 student. “There were lots of things that I liked, like the beading and the eagle.”
Kyla Cranston, the Grade 3-4 teacher at the Chinook's Edge Division school, helped organize the daylong event.
“The kids really had fun and it was a really, really neat day,” said Cranston. “They got some fantastic lessons out of it. I'm still hearing the kids talk about some of the lessons.”
Jane Atkins, the FNMI (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) education co-ordinator with the Chinook's Edge School Division, attended the event, telling students all about native culture and society.
Cranston explained that stations were set up for students to visit and learn.
“What we did is we built stations for the day based on the grandfather teachings, which is a First Nations' set of teachings,” she said. “We had stations based on wisdom, love, respect, truth and honesty.
“They were taught about the cultural significance of each of the stations. Each of those teachings has an animal attached to it. So there would be a story talking about that.
“The one that I was personally doing was respect and buffalo was the animal and why the buffalo represents respect in the First Nations culture.”
The day finished up with students taking part in traditional beading work followed by dancing in the native style.
“We did that (beading) in three levels depending on difficulty,” she said. “We talked about why beading is important to First Nations communities.
“We actually brought some math skills in there. The kids made their own patterns and counted out the beads that they needed to complete those patterns.
“And we did a round dance for the whole school at the end of the day.”
First Nations Culture Celebration day will likely become an annual event at the school, she said.
"The kids really had fun and it was a really, really neat day."Kyla CranstonReed Ranch teacher
