Rose Gartrell and Tyriesha Williams have been best friends for as long as they can remember.

But it has taken a simple craft lesson in their year 5 classroom at Annandale Public School for Rose, 10, to really start to understand Tyriesha's indigenous culture.

At Annandale, and dozens of other schools across the city, little fingers are working overtime to create bunches of paper flowers for Corroboree Sydney, an indigenous cultural festival hosted by Aboriginal elders on the shores of Sydney Harbour.

Thousands of school students from schools across the city will carry their handmade waratahs in a parade along Macquarie Street launching the 11-day arts and cultural festival on Thursday.

"It's been really fun [making the flowers] and it is acknowledging us and bringing us together," Tyriesha, one of the school's indigenous students, said.

For Rose, the project has also been a welcomed distraction from the usual classroom activities.

"It's good because we are not just sitting down listening to the teacher talk about this stuff," Rose said.

"Events like NAIDOC and lot of the big festivals often have no link back to what the kids should be learning, and people have NAIDOC days or take them to an event and just tick the box and say that was our Aboriginal perspective," Mr Pearson said.

"But with Corroboree, we have been working with the Board of Studies and linking the activities back to the curriculum and so we can point to the teachers and say this is the merit of it."

Matt Jackman, an assistant principal at Annandale Public and leader of Aboriginal education at the school, said the school community had always embraced indigenous culture.

Mr Jackman said the school had made more than 180 waratahs for the parade.

"At our school we really focus on making sure it is about not them and us," Mr Jackman said.