Did you know that August 9th is International Day of the World’s Indigenous People? It’s one of the special dates I listed in this month’s newsletter, and I feel it’s important to actually do something with our kids to recognize this day. Below is a list of ideas to do with your toddler:

• Paint and craft with nature
• Listen to music by Indigenous artists
• Read books by Indigenous authors
• Research Indigenous role models and change makers
• Learn common words in an Indigenous language
• Connect with the land
• Try a traditional Indigenous meal
• Teach your child what treaty territory you live on

With a young child, it’s important to keep the ideas simple, but to teach respect and awareness as well as traditional practices. For example, you can easily engage them in practices like respecting the land and animals or sitting in a circle for story time. As your child grows older, you can begin to teach them about residential schools and the hardships Indigenous people faced and continue to face everyday.

To end this post, I want to share how we recently engaged our toddler with Indigenous culture. Some of my family members flew up to visit for Andee’s third birthday, and of course you can’t visit Calgary and not visit the mountains. So we made a day trip to Lake Minnewanka and took one of their guided boat cruises.

On the cruise we learned a lot about the lake and surrounding land and what it meant to the Stoney people. We learned about how Minnewanka means “Lake of the Spirits” and how the Stoney people referenced a certain mountain face to know if it was safe to be on the lake or not. There were many more details shared and of course beautiful views to see.

Our intention with visiting Lake Minnewanka was to simply visit the mountains, but it became much more meaningful once we acknowledged the land we were on. The details shared on the cruise were easy enough for Andee to understand and exposed her to the Indigenous culture in a toddler friendly way.

Hopefully the ideas I shared will spark your imagination on how you too can acknowledge Indigenous peoples with your toddler. Feel free to share other ideas in the comments below!

Happy day y’all!