American
Sequoyah and the Talking Leaves
A Cherokee man who spent years working out a way to write his own language down, so the marks on a page could carry a voice — and his whole nation could read.
This Week · First Peoples and the Land · Indigenous Peoples' Day
First Peoples and the Land: what does it mean to belong to a place?
For littler ones: What makes a place really feel like home to you?
This week, with Indigenous Peoples' Day, we're wondering about the first peoples and the land — the people who were here long before there was a country called America. What does it mean to belong to a place? Not just to live somewhere, but to truly belong to it. It's a good thing to turn over in the car or at the table, because everyone at your house will land somewhere a little different.
This week's stories
American
Sacagawea and the Long Road Home
A young Shoshone woman who knew the rivers and mountains of her homeland by heart, and carried her baby across them with the expedition — a young woman who had been taken from her homeland as a girl, and now knew it better than anyone in the party.
American
The First Thanksgiving
A harvest in 1621, where the Wampanoag, whose people had lived on that land for generations, sat down to eat with the Pilgrims, who had arrived that same year.
Talk about it
- What makes a place feel like home to you — is it the people, the things you do there, how long you've been there, or something else?
- Sequoyah belonged to his people through their language; Sacagawea knew her homeland by its rivers and mountains. What are the ways a person can belong to a place?
- The Wampanoag had lived on that land for generations. The Pilgrims had arrived only months before. What do you think each of them was thinking at that meal?
- Sequoyah's Cherokee nation, and the Wampanoag, and many other Native peoples were later forced off the land their families had lived on for generations. What do you think it means to belong to a place if someone can make you leave it?
A new question every week.
Listen together in the app — short audio stories for kids 4–10, at bedtime, on the drive, in the drop-off line.
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