Oshki Ogimaag Community School
May 10, 2024
Boozhoo Oshki Ogimaag Community School Families and Community Partners!
There's been lots of buzzing about bees and butterflies lately at Oshki Ogimaag Community School! One of our Environmental Education (EE) goals is for 3rd and 4th graders to research why bees and butterflies are crucial to our ecosystem and present their findings to our Kindergarteners, 1st graders and 2nd graders.
A connecting action EE goal is for students K-4 to create an environment in our school/Community garden that attracts pollinators, such as bees and butterflies.
The 3rd and 4th graders gave a pollinator presentation last Friday to the Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders. The 3rd and 4th graders did a phenomenal job! They created a beautiful, well-researched interactive presentation, accompanied by engaging hands-on activities for the younger students to work on after the presentation. We are so impressed and proud of the leadership skills our students exemplify and love seeing our students engaged in meaningful multi-age learning experiences. Our students embody the moniker of "school of new leaders" exceptionally well!
Check us out on Boreal!
Boreal Community Media is doing a Staff Spotlight series on Oshki Ogimaag Community School staff, starting with our amazing Interim Director/Ojibwe Language and Culture Instructor, Ms. Cherie James! They will spotlight a different staff member each day. Miigwech to Boreal for reaching out and asking us to share about our wonderful team!
Check out the spotlight on Ms. James by clicking the link below:
https://www.boreal.org/2024/05/10/491147/meet-your-oshki-ogimaag-community-school-staff-cherie-james
This week students were learning Ojibwe terms for emotions, reading culturally relevant stories and describing character emotions, threading literacy, Ojibwe language and culture, and SEL into classroom instruction. Students worked on self-portraits expressing different emotions, weaving art into the classroom instruction. We do not view these content areas as stand-alone but inherently inter-connected and we develop our curriculum and lessons with this interconnectedness in mind.
Preparing Students Through Hands-On, Community-based Projects
At Oshki Ogimaag Community School we are filled with gratitude for the many Community partners that collaborate with us, offering their time, talents and service to support our students with meaningful, intergenerational, and engaging learning experiences.
This week our Community Connections included gardening with Miss Tess Bailey, Grand Portage Community Nutrition Educator. Miss Tess's work with students supports our EE goals work! We are so appreciative of the time and educational experiences she offers to us!
On Tuesday, CLIMB Theatre visited our school to do an interactive presentation on invasive aquatic species.
On Wednesday, Thomas Peacock (Fond du Lac Band Member) and Betsy Albert-Peacock (Red Cliff Band Member), owners and operators of Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing; a Native-owned publishing house that publishes books written and illustrated by Native authors and artists, visited Oshki Ogimaag Community School and read with our classes. They read Makoons and The Dancers to our students.
On Thursday, we had Yoga with Miss Carly. Miss Carly Puch is a certified yoga instructor, and an educator on mindfulness, wellness and healthy living for our bodies and environment. Miss Carly works with several Cook County schools. We appreciate her presence in our school and students LOVE their time with her! Miss Carly's work supports emotional regulation and social emotional learning for our students.
Mark Your Calendar!
The Last Day of School is Friday, May 31st!
We will celebrate all that our students accomplished this year! Open to all!
- 11am Awards Ceremony
- 12pm Open House Lunch (we will be gilling, and have yummy sides and treats!)
- At around 1pm we will head over to the marina for fishing - our Last Day of School tradition!
We hope to see you there!
