October Cultural Calendar Ideas

October is a season of harvest and preparation for winter, reflected in the many names for the month’s moon.

Cooler temperatures bring more rain and early frosts. In northern landscapes, crowberries, mountain cranberries and bearberries still brighten the land.

Fish move upriver, and birds begin migrating south. Ducks are fat from summer feeding and begin moving south.

Fall feasts vary by region and may include:  Salmon, fish eggs, white fish, Arctic char, wapato, wild rice, hazelnuts,  pumpkin, squash, corn, beans, walnuts, juniper bark, Indian celery, rose hips, highbush cranberry, duck, caribou, elk, moose, and goose

Fall harvesting and food preparation support Indigenous food security throughout the year. For some Nations, this is also a time to move from seasonal camps to winter villages and add preserved foods to winter stores. For example, in Laxyuubm Ts’msyen, people leave fish camps to their coastal winter villages– gathering continues with shellfish to preserve.

Across First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities, fall is a time to prepare for winter. In the past, Coast Salish People made warm blankets using woolly dog hair, carefully tending the dogs and harvesting their wool.

Tahltan Nation members would move from fish camps to higher altitudes, to hunt large game and trap smaller ansimals, building winter stores of meat, hides and furs.

Depending on location, fall preparations may include:

• Harvesting berries, roots, and nuts. 
• Gathering plants for teas and medicines.
• Hunting, trapping, and preparing snares.
• Dying or canning fish and meat, and using other preservation methods.
• Setting nets and finishing hides
• Making or repairing snowshoes, tools and other winter items.
• Making moccasins and other warm clothing.  

Activity Ideas/ Program Planning

Start with what is happening on the territory around your program. What foods are being harvested, could they inspire a field trip,food preservation activity, menu items, or feast? Invite an Elder or Knowledge Keeper to share teachings about foods being revitalized locally.

Consider the winter preparations underway in your region. Which activities do families and community members continue, and how can your AHS program participate respectfully?

October 22 is Métis leader Louis Riel’s birthday. Celebrate through birthday songs in your program languages, and family take-home activities, or highlight a historic leader from your community.

For professional development, connect with a nearby AHS program to share ideas and supports. Where practical, programs could also plan a joint field trip for children and families.

Planning resources and materials for consideration

1. Understanding Outdoor Play – Outdoor Learning School & Store
2. Indigenous Seasonal teaching 
3. BC ACCS Cultural Planning 
4. Kicksled Revolution
5. Creating Inclusive Outdoor Experiences
6. Toddlers’ Nature Play
7. Indigenous Medicine
8. Indigenous Perspectives: Land-Based Learning in the Early Years
9. Editable Moon Graphic
10. Indigenous Perspectives: Well-being in the Early Years

Art Center

Offer bright fall colours, varied papers, coloured glue and fall-scented finger paints. Natural materials such as dried corn, nuts, gourds, mini pumpkins, bark and leaves can be used for painting, tracing, gluing and collage.

Add nighttime colours such as black or brown, grey and white for craeting animals that are active after dark.

For 3-5-year-olds, add leaves, acorns, fall-shaped buttons, cornmeal, corn kernels, pumpkin seeds, stickers and apples or potatoes for stamping.

Display photos of the land in fall and local animals to inspire art. Leaf, corn, web, pumpkin or squash stencils can also support creativity and fine-motor development.

Make edible “paints” for a safe and fun painting option for Infant and toddlers.  

Crafts

Invite children to make a centerpiece or decorations for a fall feast using materials such as: 

• Traditional baskets or clay pots. 
• Baskets and clay pots that can be decorated with cultural designs. 
• Gourds, pumpkins, Indian corn, pumpkin seeds, leaves, moss, hazelnuts, walnuts, pinecones – or other items that can be collected out on the land by the children. 

Children can also make rattles out of gourds, which have been used to make rattles by many Indigenous Peoples. Follow local cultural guidance whenever introducing teachings or designs.

Sensory

Early fall weather offers rich opportunities for outdoor sensory learning. On nature walks, notice and talk about changes in weather and the land.

• Invite children to feel natural materials and notice how cold weather can change their texture or make some items brittle.
• Return to the same places at different times to notice seasonal changes.

For indoor or outdoor sensory play, collect safe items from the program’s harvest garden or a local community garden.

• Explore bumpy gourds, smooth squash, mini pumpkins, and dried corn in sensory or science areas. Make a toddler fall sensory bag.
• Use natural materials with clay or playdough for open-ended exploration.
• Cut dried corn cobs into playdough rollers for little hands.
• Make cornmeal playdough!

Fall Science Topics

• Apples:  lifecycle of an apple, seed to tree, why do apples turn brown?
• Pumpkins: lifecycle of a pumpkin, parts of a pumpkin.
• Pinecones:  What are they? Why do they open and close? 
• Animals: How and why do animals such as squirrels store food for the winter?  
• Fall Experiments for Kids

Health Promotion/ Indigenous Foods

Explore locally available fish and fish eggs with guidance from community. Invite an Elder or Knowledge Keeper for a meal to share language, stories and teachings about harvesting and preparation. Children can also visit a farm, pumpkin patch or community garden; help wash, seed or shuck harvested foods; incorporate these foods into the month’s menu. Document how foods move from harvest to meal– apple tree to apple sauce, or butternut squash to fritters!

Depending on location, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries, rosehips, mountain blueberries, hawthorn berries, or elderberries may still be available for picking.

Recipes of the Month

Wild rice flatbread

Sweet potato breakfast scramble

ʔiiḥatisatḥ činax̣int Bean Soup Recipe

Health Link of the Month

Healthy Food Guidelines for First Nations Communities

Playful additions

Building Block/ Construction Area

Add baskets of seasonal materials to the block area: pumpkins, sticks, wood rounds, leaves, pinecones, forest animals, cedar or spruce boughs, local animal figures and other safe natural items.

Printable Fall Pattern Block Art Mats

Math Center

Innovative Idea: Lower Fraser Valley Aboriginal Head Start created a math game with Indigenous language that could be taken outdoors.

Lofty Ideas

Transform a loft or play space into a fall tree, cornfield or pumpkin patch. Invite children to help create the display and include each child’s name, artwork or photo where permissions allow.

If a child’s photo cannot be displayed, invite them to draw a self-portrait so everyone can be represented.

Try a pumpkin stand with different-sized pumpkins and a scale so children can compare and weigh them, or move the science area into the loft for a fresh setting,

A quiet reading area is another simple way to refresh the space.

Dramatic Play Area 

For dramatic play, add locally appropriate cultural materials with guidance, along with animals from the territory, furs, costumes and materials for building dens or burrows. Seasonal foods such as pumpkins, gourds, shovels and buckets can support role-play harvesting play.

Reading Area

Add animal, food and colour magnets, including homemade magnets labelled in local Indigenous languages.

Add a mirror labelled with body-part words in local Indigenous languages, along with a selection on Indigenous seasonal books.

Circle Time

Use circle time to Introduce or reinforce Indigenous teachings through stories, songs, games and shared memories or experiences.

Recommended Resources

Talking Sticks/ Feathers

Indigenous Story Telling

Juniper Tree learning.com

Indigenous games

Promoting Indigenous Cultural Identity

Outdoor activities and ideas

Make the most of gentle fall weather with time outdoors – as much as possible! Where salmon runs occur, visit local streams and waterways sat an appropriate time with community guidance.

Outdoor ideas include harvesting fall foods or medicines with Elders, visiting spawning salmon, taking a nature walk or scavenger hunt, visiting a local school playground or historic site, or planning another community-based outing connected to the season. 

Community

Community outings help children experience local Indigenous cultures, lands and Nations– an important part of AHS cultural planning.

Innovative Idea:  Children at Tansi AHS visited an Indigenous led farm

Invite community role models to spend time with children indoors or outdoors. Share stories of role models.

Innovative idea:  Little Cubs welcomed Indigenous NHL player Carey Price as a special guest.  

Innovative idea: Tansi AHS In Chetwynd welcomed local Indigenous chef, musician, Knowledge Keeper Art Napolean

Parent and Family Involvement

Invite parents and caregivers into daily play and learning experiences that strengthen parent-child connections.

Children can make invitation for families to join nature walks and other fall outings.

• Host a fall feast for families. 
• Invite families onto the land with Elders for locally appropriate seasonal teachings and activities, e.g. making snares, tea over the fire. 
• Offer food-preparation workshops such as canning or cooking with seasonal, Indigenous ingredients.
• Share photos from the month, with appropriate permissions, so families can stay connected to program activities.
• Invite parents and children to learn about traditional teas and make blends with a Knowledge Keeper.  
• Host a family craft workshop, such as drum or rattle making, with appropriate cultural guidance.  

Outreach /Activity kits  

Create a take-home kit that helps families celebrate a fall feast together.

Include locally relevant foods, recipes or ingredients. Depending on community and region, examples might include bison, duck, elk, rabbit, salmon, goose, Arctic char, cranberries, wild rice or traditionally harvested nuts.

Kits might also include traditional teas, wild rice, fresh corn, squash and beans, preserves or local syrups.

Add a family craft where appropriate, such as a gourd rattle, centrepiece, fish-scale art, pine-needle ornament or basket.

Traditional Parenting

Host a drum making or rattle making workshop for families by reflecting on the following questions.

1. What are children’s nations’ and local nations’ teachings and protocols connected to drums or rattles?
2. Who should provide the knowledge and teachings? Invite Elders or Knowledge Keepers.
3. Ask Elders/Knowledge Keepers which teachings can appropriately be shared with children and families?
4. What foods from the children’s nationscan be served alongside the activity?

Elder Involvement

Invite Elders to lead land-based walks, harvesting trips and other seasonal learning.

Elders may also join outings to community gardens, farms, orchards, pumpkin patches, or other locally relevant places. 

October 1 is National Seniors Day. Consider inviting Elders for a meal, picnic, or performance by the children! 

Programs may also plan an October 1 visit with Elders to a seniors’ home, where appropriate. Elders can lead workshops, share protocols and songs, and contribute favourite fall recipes for families.

In honour of Louis Riel’s birthday, we share Michif Elder Norman Fleury’s special celebration cake recipe. Maarsi,Norman, for sharing this special recipe with us.  

Lii Gaatoo di milaas Aan Michif (Granny LeClerc’s molasses Cake )

1 cup of brown sugar 

2 ½ cups of flour 

1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp salt  

4 eggs  

1 cup butter   

Optional: 1 cup dates, half cup walnuts, 1 ½ cups raisins or currants 

Directions 

Preheat oven to 325. Cream together sugar and butter add eggs.  Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl then slowly add to egg mixture. Bake in a well-oiled loaf pan or square cake pan. Bake for 2 to 2 ½ hours.