curricula and pedagogy

Indigenous Ways of Knowing-Connections to the Land and Language Literacy

This workshop will allow educators to learn about Indigenous ways of knowing and how pedagogy can be linked to the land.

Guest Speaker: Andrea Williams

All attendees are to come with a story from their family or culture. In this workshop Andrea will explain the relationship between the Land and language literacy. And the ways in which this may be experienced by Indigenous communities and children. She will discuss how oral storytelling and land- based learning offer significant benefits to Indigenous families and children by providing culturally relevant education, community building, opportunities for intergenerational knowledge transfer, and creating safe spaces for healing and learning.

About the Presenter:

Natalie Royer is a learning strategist at Saroy Group and will facilitate the following workshops. Natalie has more than 15 years’ experience working with children and families in various settings across Toronto. Natalie’s experience ranges from working in Volunteer resources at Bloorview Kids Rehab from working in the Genetic Counseling department at the Hospital for Sick Children to facilitating adult workshops for parents to teaching in ECE departments across Toronto.

She has supervised academic programs at the TDSB serving marginalized women. Most recently, Natalie took part in a two-year study funded by Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) at Ryerson University looking at equity in early childhood education. The study was recently featured in Today’s Parent and the findings have been presented at both education and health conferences across Ontario.

This session will be facilitated online via Zoom and you will receive a link the day before the session takes place.

For more information about this training and other professional development and training opportunities offered by York Region, please visit our Eventbrite Page or email capacitybuilding@york.ca.

York Region Children’s Services

Indigenous Ways of Knowing-Connections to the Land and Language Literacy

This workshop will allow educators to learn about Indigenous ways of knowing and how pedagogy can be linked to the land.

Guest Speaker: Andrea Williams

All attendees are to come with a story from their family or culture. In this workshop Andrea will explain the relationship between the Land and language literacy. And the ways in which this may be experienced by Indigenous communities and children. She will discuss how oral storytelling and land- based learning offer significant benefits to Indigenous families and children by providing culturally relevant education, community building, opportunities for intergenerational knowledge transfer, and creating safe spaces for healing and learning.

About the Presenter:

Natalie Royer is a learning strategist at Saroy Group and will facilitate the following workshops. Natalie has more than 15 years’ experience working with children and families in various settings across Toronto. Natalie’s experience ranges from working in Volunteer resources at Bloorview Kids Rehab from working in the Genetic Counseling department at the Hospital for Sick Children to facilitating adult workshops for parents to teaching in ECE departments across Toronto.

She has supervised academic programs at the TDSB serving marginalized women. Most recently, Natalie took part in a two-year study funded by Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) at Ryerson University looking at equity in early childhood education. The study was recently featured in Today’s Parent and the findings have been presented at both education and health conferences across Ontario.

This session will be facilitated online via Zoom and you will receive a link the day before the session takes place.

For more information about this training and other professional development and training opportunities offered by York Region, please visit our Eventbrite Page or email capacitybuilding@york.ca.

York Region Children’s Services

Natural Curiosity offers a powerful way to engage children in learning about their world. This webinar introduces a transformative approach to early years learning on the land, which first begins with reimagining our own relationship to the natural world. How might educators model an ongoing, intimate, and deeply informed relationship with the land, in ways that help children to develop a more reciprocal relationship to place, and to each other?

You are invited to ignite the fire of your professional inquiry by exploring how reimagining and restoring our relationship with land can transform practice in early learning environments, rooted in reconciliation with the land.

Registration link HERE

To prepare for this webinar, you are invited to watch Elder Dave Courchene's video and to think with the following questions:
• What is our relationship to the natural world?
• How would our practice be different if we had a relationship with the land?
• How can land-based inquiry learning support early years educators, students, and families to develop a connection to Indigenous perspectives, in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation?

You can share your ideas, curiosities and/or questions about how we understand our relationship to the natural world in this Padlet.

We highly encourage you to attend this webinar. This is an extraordinary opportunity to generate ideas, curiosities, questions and possibilities together about how we understand our relationship to the natural world. We're sure that your ideas will make the facilitated small group conversations, a rich and meaningful experience.

Haley Higdon is the Program Director of Natural Curiosity at the University of Toronto’s Laboratory School, and acted as the Managing Editor for the development and creation of Natural Curiosity 2nd Edition: The Importance of Indigenous Perspectives in Children’s Environmental Inquiry. Combining her classroom teaching experience and strong commitment to environmental sustainability, Haley has provided hundreds of professional learning experiences for educators across Canada and beyond, demonstrating an inquiry-based approach to experiential environmental education that can in turn be applied in any learning environment. Haley’s workshops are often created in partnership with Early Years, Outdoor and/or Indigenous Education Leads from some of Canada’s largest school boards and early learning centres, as well as leading professionals in the fields of experiential, environmental and Indigenous education.