Today, I would like to acknowledge the Yuggera, Jagera and Ugarapul people as the Traditional Custodians of the beautiful land I am standing on today. From the mountains to the river, I open my heart and my eyes as I walk this land, listening, learning and caring for Country. I want to extend this respect to Elders; past, present and emerging and to all First Nations peoples reading this post today. We are all remembered here.
Before you start: Please know that this post is not sponsored and I do not receive any commission related to this post. This post is based on my own experiences, opinions, and what I have been taught and learnt, and it does not represent all First Nations peoples. If you are unsure about something, connecting with Community is the most respectful way for you to embed First Nations content specific to your area.
Ahhhh the excitement of a new year is here and I know you guys love planning and getting organised for the year ahead as much as I do, so I thought what better time to write a post that will help everyone to plan out your First Nations content better than these 3 teacher resources, all of which I might add are either made my First Nations artists or teachers or are collaborations with First Nations peoples. Too deadly right!
Alright, here we go!
Do you use a teacher planner? If you do, which one do you use and why?
Personally, I lovvvve planners! Maybe it is just the fact that I am totally obsessed with stationary and organisation but I don't think I am alone on this one... well at least I hope I'm not haha. This is why the first resource in this post, is I believe an absolute must for all teachers but in this case particularly Australian teachers.
As most of you know, Jo from Mrs Edgar makes the most beautiful teacher planners out there! They are so happy and so, so practical, but this one takes the cake for sure, in my opinion. Mrs Edgar and the amazing Holly Sanders, have teamed up to bring you a planner that celebrates First Nations culture and peoples and also keeps all Australian teachers organised all year round.
This beautiful artwork, which is on the front cover of both the daily and weekly planner, is titled ‘Ngulli muggi mijunnwern jarjum’ which means 'Strong and happy children' in Bundjalung Language (North Coast NSW). Holly is a proud Bundjalung woman and also a teacher. She has been kind enough to share in great detail the meaning behind her artwork, which is a great resources in itself, so be sure to head over to Holly's artist profile on Mrs Edgar's website to read all about it.
This planner comes in both a daily and a weekly edition which are both gold spiral bound and contain EVERYTHING, no joke, seriously everything you need for planning out your entire year in whichever way suits you best.
Not only does this collaboration give Australian teachers a way to plan out there year in the deadliest way possible but it also gives back to Community which is so important for our mob. Please remember that with every purchase of the 'Strong and Happy' planners, a portion of the proceeds is donated to GO Foundation, which is a foundation founded by the the amazing Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin and designed to create a brighter future for First Nations peoples.
For more information on either the daily or weekly planner please head over to www.mrsedgar.com.au where you will find all of the specifics of each of these very special and teacher made planners. If you would like to watch a quick video of the daily planner and the weekly planner then feel free to check out these two links on IGTV, where you can see a full walk through, of each planner with Jo.
Ok, so we have found our planner for the year but now we need to plan the content, and this is where you can really plan out how you will Connect with Community and find some amazing First Nations resources to embed into your everyday teaching.
To help you do this, the amazing team at Wingaru Education created this INCREDIBLE freebie. Yes that's right, I said Freebie! To help all Australian teachers to plan out and embed First Nations perspectives into your everyday teaching.
This planner was a part of a collaboration with Aaron from @mr.j.learning.space on Instagram, who worked with Wingaru Education to share an entire terms worth of planning and resources to give teachers all around Australia, great examples on how he was embedding First Nations perspectives (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives) into his everyday teaching. This collaboration covered NAIDOC Week 2020, and shared some absolutely incredible resources which I really recommend you check out.
But hold on, it doesn't end there...
If you use the #planningwithwingaruandmrj on Instagram you will find heaps of other deadly teachers who also joined the challenge and shared all of their lessons and planning for the term too, so make sure you head over and check out the hashtag.
As you can see, the first page of the PDF is a mind map which really gives you a great place to begin planning around the topic you will be focusing on for the term. As I mentioned before, originally this planning freebie was released as a part of Wingaru Education's NAIDOC Week Challenge which is why it is filled with NAIDOC ideas and suggestions but it is completely editable, so you can use it time and time again. How great is that! All you have to do is download the planner PDF from the Wingaru Education blog and begin planning. I really love how Wingaru has included a term goal and a space for the outcome. This is so helpful to keep you on track and in line with what you are aiming to achieve to teach your students.
Now this section is the weekly planner and will really help you to nut out exactly what you need and what curriculum outcomes it will cover, which is great. Remember, if you are using links from the internet you can insert them as hyperlinks and you should be able to access them straight from the PDF, which will save you from copying and pasting the URL into the URL search too (just a little short cut to make it a bit easier for you).
So far so good right?! Very simple and very practical. Ok, so let's look at the final page of the PDF.
This page is the 'Term Overview', which I find is really good for if you need to have a quick glance to see where you are up to in your planning or your teaching. But I also love the 'Key Learning Areas' section on the right hand side where you mark off each of the KLAs that you are addressing. So great!
All in all, if you don't already have this resource then you should absolutely head over to the amazing Wingaru Education Blog and download it. From here, I would definitely recommend following @wingaru_education on Instagram, where you can check out all of their amazing digital First Nations resources and their incredible website and blog too.
Alright, last but not least. Here we go!
So, now that we have all of the content planned, it's important to stay on track. Personally, I have always loved having my desktop super organised and we look at it so often, especially these days that I think it only makes sense to have everything planned out and easy to access on the computer too, so I wanted to share with you my own desktop organiser, today for free.
There are 5 simple sections to this desktop organiser:
Acknowledgement of Country; This is completely editable in Canva (A graphic design program which is incredibly easy for anyone to use, I absolutely adore this program!) so you can change it to suit your classroom and the First Nations land you are on.
Today's timetable; again this is completely editable in Canva and is great for keeping your day on track.
Resources section; This section is a great place to store your resources for the day and links to websites you may need to quickly link to while you are teaching.
To do list; Of course there is a to do list that is also completely editable. You can type in the main things you need to do each day and stay on track.
Desktop icons; This section gives you space to store all of the desktop links that you use all of the time such as DET portal links, certain programs the school has implemented etc.
The artwork itself is one of my own designs and celebrates the landscape and my home back on Dunghutti Country. It is titled 'Listening to Country' and shares the different ways we were taught as children to listen, look and feel the messages that were being shared with us as we walked on Country.
I really hope that these three resources help you to keep on track with embedding First Nations (Aboriginal perspectives) into your everyday teaching and am looking forward to sharing with you some really exciting resources that I have been working super hard on, so stay tuned for those in the coming months.
Let me know in the comments what thoughts and ideas you have around planning and embedding First Nations perspectives and if you are a teacher planner type of person? I would love to hear all of your thoughts and suggestions.
Remember if you have any questions about embedding First Nations perspectives into your everyday teaching please feel free to send me an email or you can find me on Instagram @missgibbsau , I love meeting and yarning with you all about different ways to embed First Nations perspectives into your everyday teaching so be sure to come and say 'Hi'.
To begin your journey of embedding First Nations perspectives into your everyday teaching have a look at my blog post; 'A first step to embedding First Nations perspectives into your everyday teaching, where you will find great links and guides on how to create and embed an Acknowledgment of Country into your everyday teaching, along with an Acknowledgment of Country Bulletin Board FREEBIE for your classroom.
For more places to find First Nations resources and how to embed them check out my blog post; 'Where can I find books by First Nations authors and illustrators? And how can I embed them?', where you will find links to incredible resources published by First Nations publisher Magabala Books, along with a guide on how to use these resources respectfully in your classroom, and a list of teaching ideas and lesson plans prepared by Reading Australia.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post today!
And until next time... happy embedding!
