A Land Acknowledgement is a great way to center the lives of Indigenous peoples. By integrating Land Acknowledgements into your nature walks, you and your family can learn about Indigenous lands, history, and present-day culture and start a conversation about America’s history of colonialism.

Before

• As you plan your nature walk, look up the history of the original caretakers of the land using Native Land’s Interactive Map.
• Together, write a land acknowledgment. For example: “This is the Ho Chunk’s land. The Ho Chunk people care for the land and so do I.” Then, add information from what you’ve learned from Native Land: “I honor the Ho Chunk tribe as the traditional caretakers of this land.”

During

• At the start of the walk, read your land acknowledgement with your child.
• Connect with the land. This may look different for every family, but you might take a silent walk, look for animals, or sketch trees/flowers as you immerse yourself in nature.

After

• Ask your child to describe their experience being in nature.
• Ask why it’s important to protect and preserve the land.
• Look up information about contemporary tribes. Many tribes have websites with additional information. Make a plan to connect with the local tribe by attending an event or learning more.
• Make land acknowledgments part of your family tradition.

Everyone’s skin has melanin, and the amount of melanin we have determines our skin color. Teach children the scientific basis of skin color differences with this brief movement activity.

Before

Use some of these conversation starters to introduce the idea of skin “Have you ever noticed that people have different skin colors? What do you know about that?”

• Say: “Everyone’s skin has something called melanin. Melanin are these tiny cells inside your skin that help protect you from the sun. They also give you your skin color. Melanin is more active in dark skin, and less busy in light skin.”
• Ask: “Do you think that your melanin is really active or less busy? What about me? Do you think I have more melanin or less melanin than you?”

Tell your child that on the count of three everyone is going to wiggle. If they have a lot of melanin, they should wiggle a lot, If they have a little melanin they should wiggle a little, and in-between.

During

Stand up with your child and everyone wiggle based on their melanin. Get the whole family involved and have everyone do the Melanin Wiggle!

After

Ask your child: “What did you learn about why people have different skin colors? What did you learn about all of the skin colors in our family? What do you think about that?”

The word “protest” may often have a negative connotation but this activity is a great way to introduce it in an empowering and positive way! We can model standing up for what we believe and one way to get our message across by bringing our children to protests with us.

Before

Explain to your child that you will be attending a protest. –

• Say: “A protest is when people come together to say that something is not fair.”

Explain what you will be protesting.

• Ask: “What questions do you have about this protest?”

Have your child help make a sign for the protest.

• Ask: “What should our sign say?”

During

Encourage your child to take in what’s happening around them. You might ask:

• What are the protestors saying is unfair?
• Do you see any signs or costumes that you liked? What did you like about them?
• How does it feel to be around so many people who are working together to make a change?

After

Debrief the protest. Ask:

• What skin colors did you see among the protestors?
• What did the protesters say was “not fair?”
• Is that thing unfair for everyone? What do you think about that?
• What could we change about the world to make that better?