If you were to ask Andrea Harding what here favourite word in Wiliideh Yati is, she'd say K'omoodoo hoizii. That roughly translates to saying hello.

"I like greeting people in the morning," she said. "I think that's a wonderful way to start the day."

Harding is the regional Indigenous language and education coordinator for Yellowknife Education District No. 1. For Indigenous Languages Month, she and students from junior kindergarten to Grade 12 have plenty to learn and share. It starts with games, she explained.

"We created talking bags," Harding said, adding that she and other Indigenous language and education team leads came up with the idea. 

A talking bag is filled with games that emphasize speaking an Indigenous language, Harding explained. It pairs well with this year's theme: "Come speak with me."

Some games have an Indigenous twist to their English counterpart. Harding's personal favourite: a variation of the classic children's game four corners.

To play four corners, one child stands in the middle of a room with their eyes closed. They pick one corner of a room, and anyone in that chosen corner is out. Either the student in the middle gets everyone out, or last student standing wins.

For Indigenous languages month, corners are now designated with the Indigenous name of a Northern animal, such as moose. The student in the middle will say, "I'm hunting," in Wiliideh Yati and then call out the name of whatever animal they pick.

If a student is really good at the language, they can also count off how many people they got out in Wiliideh Yati as well, Harding added.

"It encourages sentence structure, but it also encourages the names of the animals and it can be differentiated pretty well, depending on the language ability of the students you're working with," she said.

The goal is to keep Indigenous languages growing and thriving in schools and communities, according to Harding.

"Language and culture go hand-in-hand, and you can't have one without the other."

She added that she's hoping the teachings done in schools carry over into homes as well. 

"It's super important to keep the language alive and thriving," said Harding. "It's also a really important act through reconciliation, that we recognize the language of the land of which we are benefiting from and living on and celebrate that language."

Harding added that schools are happy to share any resources created to promote Indigenous languages.

"We just want to get the resources out there," she said. "We're all here to benefit the kids and that means following the Dene law of sharing what we have and making sure that as many people have access to the things that we've created as possible."

February marks Indigenous Languages Month.