Our thanks to Discover the Universe and the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics for their wonderful collaboration on these materials with us!
This book was nominated by the Forest of Reading for their 2025 Blue Spruce Award
A special reading of the book by the author Brittany Luby for the Forest of Reading
Math Lessons
Travelling the World
In the book Ojiig moved with his family to a new city. In this activity students will investigate and discuss the math behind travelling between various locations and the different forms of travel involved.
| Level | K – 8, see specific activities for each grade level |
| Student Groupings | individual or small groups |
| Length | 30 – 60 minutes |
Downloadables:
Seeing Patterns and Tesselations
Ojiig’s quilt contains a series of repeated shapes and patterns in various colours. The floor of the First Nations University in Regina, Saskatchewan also contains such patterns. In this activity students will investigate the patterns found in both shapes and compare them. They will then create their own patterns using tangram tiles.
| Level | K – 8, see specific activities for each grade level |
| Student Groupings | individual or small groups |
| Length | 30 – 60 minutes |
Downloadables:
Buckets of Blueberries
One of the things Ojiig noticed when moving to the city was the fact that his family now bought blueberries and marvelled at the size of them. This activity will look at the differences between wild grown blueberries and mass produced/farmed blueberries and investigate them mathematically.
| Level | K – 8, see specific activities for each grade level |
| Student Groupings | individual or small groups |
| Length | 30 – 60 minutes |
Downloadables:
Astronomy Lessons
Using Stellarium to Learn About the Sky
In the book, Ojiig misses seeing the stars and the night sky. In this activity, students are invited to learn about the night sky using a planetarium app on the computer.
| Level | K – 8, see specific activities for each grade level |
| Student Groupings | small groups or as a class demo |
| Length | 15 – 30 minutes |
| Materials Needed | computer |
Downloadables:
Create an Observation Journal
Students are invited to observe the sky as often as possible over a few weeks and record their observations in a journal.
| Level | Grades 2 – 8 |
| Student Groupings | individuals |
| Length | 5 minutes/day, over a few weeks |
Downloadables:
Create Your Own Constellation!
Ojiig is named after an Anishinaabe hero and is related to the constellation Gichi Ojiig, which many of us know as the Big Dipper. In this activity, students invent their own constellation and write a story related to it.
| Level | K – 6 |
| Student Groupings | individuals |
| Length | 30 minutes |
Downloadables: