WEG Community School is located in the middle of the Village of Slocan surrounded by mountains, forests, a lake and a river.  The land never ceases to inspire, and neither do the students.  Here are a couple of activities from the winter months.  

Students in the grade 5/6 and the 7/8  class learned some stories and history of bannock by listening to the Telling our Twisted Histories Podcast.  Next we learned one of the local names for frybread - sn̓ca̓ cí̓xlǎ ʔxʷ.  The classes then worked through the fractions in a frybread recipe and headed out to the forest for an afternoon connecting on the land and enjoying the sn̓ca̓ cí̓xlǎ ʔxʷ we made over the fire.  

The grade 3/4 class has been working on a gifting project.  They began by exploring the trees that line the school yard.  After spending time playing and reflecting under a large stand of cedars the class began learning about the different ways that different Nations use cedar across Turtle Island. They also learned the Sinixt word for cedar - mxiɬp.  The students then worked with ratios to mix a mxiɬp smudge spray to gift to each of the classes in the school.  Their hope is the spray will harness some of the power of cedar to protect their schoolmates from bad intentions and energy. 

Submission from Curtis Bendig - Aboriginal Academic Success Teacher