Book 5 from the Life Skills for the Young Native American series is designed for fifth graders but can be used for other grades as well. This continues the systematic approach of health and healing to education, aiming to nurture the whole child through a culturally relevant lens.
It is designed to address the unique needs of young Indigenous children, incorporating traditional wisdom with modern educational practices. This curriculum aims to build resilience and self-esteem while also teaching practical life skills for our children to thrive.
– Continued education on how to break the cycle of addiction.
– Choose life over death; how to respond to bullying; tools for depression; tools for healthy self-esteem; seeing the sacredness of life around you.
– Strengthen a native identity and language.
– Developing a positive approach to life. Promote healthy life choices
– Whole-body medicine wheel approach, viewing each of us in four parts; the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of ourselves that we refer to as “bodies.”
– Helping the child to understand that each “body” is equality important to educate, nurture and develop in order to be able to walk a balanced life.
Physical health: nutrition, sleep, hygiene, exercise, teeth health, disease prevention, pot’s harmful effects and how drugs & alcohol affect your potential.
Emotional health: identifying and expressing feelings, dealing with trauma, tools for healthy relationships, avoiding gossip and bullying.
Spiritual health: developing the virtues of a good character, the importance of a spiritual path.
Mental health: brain development, healthy habits, understanding codependency, overcoming victim thinking, how to keep healthy with addiction all around you, seeking help when needed.
Exploring mitakuye Oyasin through the four bodies
The students will go around the medicine wheel 14 times (7 times for the first semester and seven times for the second semester.).
o Opens with Health & Wellness Practices (meditation, tapping, talking circles, journaling) to take the child from a stress/trauma brain to a learning/creative brain.
o Read aloud by teachers and class read aloud with students with interactive activities for each lesson.
o Incorporates Lakota language words and ancestral wisdom.
o All workbooks have a pre and post inventory survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HVYX8FT) to track the learnings of our children and to see how this curriculum is impacting their thoughts, behaviors and beliefs. Teachers are encouraged to take pre surveys the first week of school and post surveys the last week of school. If at home take the “inventory” at the start and at the end.
