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Acknowledging the Land of Wurundjeri people

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Acknowledging the Land of Wurundjeri people

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Here is Land, (arms stretched up to the sky and out)
Here is the Sky, (hands touching the ground),
Here are my friends, (hands open out showing people around)
and here am I. (arms in to hug yourself)
We stand together, (hands out to hold hands)
Hand in Hand. (Holding each other's hands)
To thank and respect the people on the Wurundjeri Land.

-Founded by my Kinder room.

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Cairnlea Park is located off a main road which provides attractions for many families driving by, having easy access into the carpark and attend the park. I leaded towards the lake as this provided me with tranquility and serene atmosphere. The open land expresses calmness, excitement, and soothing for my soul of the sounds of the water and wind whistling through the trees. Walking along the river, I observed for a little while as my mind drifted thinking what this place looked like before I was born, before all the houses and roads were built and what it looked like then.
In the article Australia's rivers are Ancestral Beings stated "We can begin to move away from seeing rivers as merely an object that we may use as we wish, to seeing them as living entities, with whom we are all in a lasting, reciprocal relationship." reflected on my thought as I walked in Cairnlea Park because the river was not just placed there but it was there many years ago.

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“I draw on Watt’s (2013) concept of place-thought as a method of thinking about place in a different way, drawing on the idea that the land is ‘alive and thinking’” (Hamm, C 2015, page 57).

Reference
Hamm, C 2015, Walking With Place: Storying Reconciliation Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education, Victoria University.

I chose this Place Thought as it is a local park, I like to take my nieces and nephew during the weekend and school holidays as it provides them a wide-open space for their developmental learning. With such open-ended resources, my nieces will touch the big rocks and observe the many holes and textures the rock has, my nephew enjoys water as he walks along the bridge looking at the variety of animals swimming and the patterns the water creates.

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As children have safely gathered onto the land, Educators will announce an acknowledgment of country and inform the children to kindly respect the land and animals in their surroundings.
Children can wonder through the place as they explore and observe what they see, hear, touch, etc., and role playing their interests in the environment. This could be the movement of the water, swaying of the trees, flapping of the birds wings, etc.
Children could express creative art work of what they have seen that interested them at the place, using materials that were on the premise.
Educators can support children's interests by reading Summer Rain written by Ros Moriarty and illustrated by Balarinji. This picture book celebrates the animals and landscapes in Northern Australia, in Indigenous art. After reading this book, children can point out any similarities or differences between the book and the place.

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Emerging Ideas (relation to informing teaching)

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Emerging Ideas (relation to informing teaching)

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Role play- Encourages creativity and imagination
-Enriches language and enhances communication skills

Painting- develops creativity.
-memorising skills
-improves concentration

Reading- strengthens the brain.
-builds vocabulary
-children can concentrate and think deeply about the similarities and differences

By doing these activities, I hope as an educator I can provide many benefits to the children, activities that will benefit for example their communication and creative skills. I also hope that the children connect to the place, respecting the land and animals around them, knowing that for example dirt is not alive but it should still be treated with respect.

These activities also involve in the children looking around them and focusing on the animals, plants, wind etc. In my teaching I want my emerging ideas to focus on place thought’, allowing the children to think of the land as “alive and thinking”. I want the children to understand that something “still”, can be alive and thinking.

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Hamm, C 2015, ‘Walking with place: storying reconciliation pedagogies in early childhood education’

Hamm, C & Boucher, K 2017, ‘Engaging with place: foregrounding Aboriginal perspectives in early childhood education.’