Indigenous Peoples’ Day, observed across the United States on the second Monday in October, falls on October 13th this year. The holiday offers an opportunity to celebrate and learn about the rich and diverse cultures, languages, and histories of Indigenous peoples across North America, while acknowledging the losses suffered through disease, warfare, and forced assimilation stemming from the colonization of North America by Europeans.
In that same spirit, we acknowledge and honor the Haudenosaunee peoples, specifically the Kanien’keha:ka, or Mohawk tribe, on who’s ancestral land we in the North Country live, and the local communities of Ganienkeh, Akwesasne, Kahnawake, and Kanesatake in both the US and neighboring areas of Canada.
Continue below for videos, activities and more to support family and classroom learning this Indigenous Peoples’ Day and beyond!
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Learn About Native American History & Culture
Sesame Street: The Clutes | Celebrating Family Stories
Grades PreK-3
The Clutes, a family from the Akwesasne territory in northern New York, welcome us into their home to share the language and traditions of their Mohawk culture and community. Spend time with the Clutes as they celebrate their family story by honoring the beauty of their Indigenous identity as well as explore the honest history of being among the first people in a region now known as New York State.
Molly of Denali collection
Grades K-2
Informational text and Alaska Native culture form the basis of the groundbreaking Molly of Denali series and its educational resources. The Molly of Denali collection on PBS LearningMedia offers videos, digital games, lessons, teaching tips, and activities so that educators can utilize the series in the classroom.
Smithsonian: Resources for Teaching and Learning⎪Native Knowledge 360°
Grades 3-12
Native Knowledge 360° (NK360°) from the National Museum of the American Indian provides educators and students with new perspectives on Native American history and cultures. Most Americans have only been exposed to part of the story, as told from a single perspective through the lenses of popular media and textbooks. NK360° provides educational materials, virtual student programs, and teacher training that incorporate Native narratives, more comprehensive histories, and accurate information to enlighten and inform teaching and learning about Native America. NK360° challenges common assumptions about Native peoples and offers a view that includes not only the past but also the vibrancy of Native peoples and cultures today.
What We Can Learn From These Native American Comedies | Historian’s Take
Grades 6-12
Explore how representation in media can reinforce or challenge commonly held assumptions about Native Americans in this video from Historian’s Take. Native American representation in film and TV used to be confined to Westerns and storylines of defeat. Today, a new wave of Native American comedies, written and created by Native peoples, are taking back their narratives.
Native American Hip-Hop and Freestyle in Albuquerque | If Cities Could Dance
Grades 6-12
Albuquerque’s thriving hip-hop and freestyle dance scene is influenced by Indigenous dancers from many tribes, Pueblos and other communities. A strong sense of solidarity holds it all together, say dancers Anne Pesata (Jicarilla Apache) and Raven Bright (Diné). The couple describes the scene as “Indigenous futurism.” Meet Randy L. Barton, or Randy Boogie, a dancer, DJ and artist (Navajo) who created The Sacred Cypher, an event that highlights how Indigenous art forms connect with hip-hop.
Native American Leaders & Visionaries
Elizabeth Peratrovich
Grades K-2
When tourists arrive at the Denali Trading Post looking for a “real” Alaska Native tour guide, Molly and Tooey are happy to help! But their feelings are hurt when the tourists decide that Molly and Tooey don’t meet their expectations of Alaska Natives. They learn about Elizabeth Peratrovich, an activist who helped pass the first anti-discrimination act. Will history inspire Molly and Tooey to change the way the tourists think about Alaska Natives?
Zitkála-Šá
Grades 6-12
Learn about Zitkála-Šá, also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, a Yankton Sioux author, composer, and indigenous rights activist in this video from Unladylike2020. Taken from her community at age 8 to attend a boarding school as part of the assimilationist policy of the U.S. government to educate Native American youth, she used her education to advocate for American Indian rights. She trained as a violinist, writing the first Native American opera, The Sun Dance Opera; published in prestigious national magazines about American Indian struggles to retain tribal identities amid pressures to assimilate into European American culture; and co-founded the National Council of American Indians to lobby for voting rights, sovereignty rights, and the preservation of Native American heritage and ways of life.
Susan La Flesche Picotte
Grades 6-12
Susan La Flesche Picotte lived on the Nebraska frontier during a time of violent change, growing up on the Omaha Reservation against the backdrop of the Dawes Act of 1887 which sought to force indigenous tribes onto reservations and foster their assimilation into white society. As a child, La Flesche Picotte watched an Indian woman die because the white doctor never showed up: “It was only an Indian and it did not matter.” So she became a doctor herself, breaking through barriers of gender and race as the first American Indian physician and the first to found a private hospital on an American Indian reservation. Learn more about Susan La Flesche Picotte with this video from Unladylike2020.
N. Scott Momaday
Grades 6-12
Examine the enigmatic life and mind of National Medal of Arts-winner Navarro Scott Momaday, the Kiowa novelist, short-story writer, essayist and poet. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “House Made of Dawn” led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream. Although his heritage is a central theme, Momaday’s work asks universal questions: what are our origins and how do we connect to them through our collective memories? This PBS LearningMedia collection from the American Masters film, Words from a Bear: N. Scott Momaday, illuminates how he grappled with these questions, his identity and the challenges of being a Native American artist in today’s world.
Activities, Books & More
The Big Gathering Game | Molly of Denali
Grades PreK-3
Thousands of people from all over Alaska come together every year for “The Big Gathering”, a celebration of Alaska Native cultures. Help Molly get ready by completing tasks and then checking them off her to do list!
8 Children’s Books to Celebrate Native Heritage
Grades PreK-3
For centuries, Indigenous Peoples have been intentionally silenced and invisibilized; their stories stolen and hidden. It is more important than ever to read books written by and about Indigenous Peoples highlighting their heritage, cultural pride, and strength. Here are eight #OwnVoices books to honor and celebrate Native heritage not only this month, but year-round!
Compete in the Seal Hop
Grades PreK-3
Native Youth Olympics (NYO) consist of different traditional game-like exercises created by Alaska Native people. They teach survival skills, strength, and teamwork. In one of the events, participants compete to see who can make it the farthest distance while hopping like a seal. This is called the Seal Hop or Knuckle Hop.
Lesson Plan: Iroquois or Haudenosaunee? | Native America in Upstate New York
Grades 3-8
In this video, Onondaga storyteller Perry Ground speaks to students at Gowana Middle School in Clifton Park, New York about the introduction of language into meaning and purpose of others’ identities, particularly, the name Iroquois. The people who lived on this land before colonization call themselves the Haudenosaunee. What is in the name, and how can we learn a bit more about a community through the names given to the schools and streets?
Spirit of a Nation | Mission US
Grades 3-12
Engage students in an interactive game of Spirit of a Nation, where they’ll uncover artifacts and imagine life as young Apalachee people during early encounters with the Spanish.
Local & Statewide Native American Cultural Organizations
Akwesasne Cultural Center
The Akwesasne Library and Cultural Center is a public library and museum that serves the people of Akwesasne, the surrounding communities and the visiting public by providing access to educational and cultural resources. Located in the heart of Akwesasne, the center provides a positive space for educational purposes and is one of the cultural hubs of the community.
The Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center
The Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center, located in the Northeastern Adirondack Mountains, provides for the viewing of 3000-plus artifacts with an emphasis on the culture of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee): Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora. The museum features story telling lectures and creates educational experiences so that visitors, teachers and students may acquire the knowledge needed to better understand the history, culture, contemporary realities, and the potential futures of Native Nations.
The Seneca Art & Culture Center
The Seneca Art & Culture Center is a year-round interpretive facility at Ganondagan, the original site of a 17th century Seneca town that existed there peacefully more than 350 years ago. The center tells the story of the Seneca and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) contributions to art, culture and society for more than 2,000 years to the present day. Designed to fit into the natural landscape, the center features an interactive, multi-media Exhibit Gallery, including a changing exhibit space, Orientation Theater, auditorium, and gift shop.
The Iroquois Museum
The Iroquois Museum is an educational institution dedicated to fostering understanding of Iroquois culture using Iroquois art as a window to that culture. The Museum is a venue for promoting Iroquois art and artists, and a meeting place for all peoples to celebrate Iroquois culture and diversity. As an anthropological institution, it is informed by research on archaeology, history, and the common creative spirit of modern artists and craftspeople.
The New York State Museum
The New York State Museum, which explores and expresses New York State’s significant natural and cultural diversity, both past and present, features the ongoing exhibition First Peoples. Indigenous people (Native Americans) have lived in what is now New York for at least 13,000 years. Learn about the long and continuous presence of Indigenous people, from the Ice Age to the present through contemporary artwork, dioramas, and archaeology artifacts, as well as a life-size reconstructed longhouse.