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The first experience is a meditation type experience focussing on the sounds of wind, rain and waves as the artefact we are exploring. I will play sounds of the beach, reflecting the sounds I heard while on my 'on country visit'. Before the experience I will explain to the children to stay still and quiet while we listen to the sounds, and tell them to really try to focus on what they hear and how it makes them feel. We will darken the room and I will play sounds of the wind, the rain and then waves. Playing them separately to give the children the chance to really listen deeply to each sound After the experience, we will sit down together and talk about what we heard, could they identify the different sounds? and how each of the sounds made the children feel. How did each sound make them feel, did it make them think of anything in particular?

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Deep listening is strongly connected to many Aboriginal learning pedagogies. So firstly, this experience is a wonderful way of incorporating Aboriginal practices and beliefs into the children's learning.

This experience of deep listening allows the children to connect the natural sounds of the ocean. It helps them get into a relaxed state and centre themselves, Mirriam-Rose Ugunnmer calls this Dadirri, a state of being present and still in nature. As we cannot take the children to the beach, as unfortunately our outdoor area has very little in the way of natural materials, I am completing this indoors as a meditation. In this I am hoping the children can recognise an emotional response and connection to the sounds. This will subconsciously ignite their interoceptive senses.

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🌀 Hurricane, Storm Ambience on the Beach with Heavy Rough Ocean Waves Crashing on the Coast

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I felt something calming but also empowering about listening the crashing waves when I was at the beach for my experience. I am wanting the children to engage with just the sounds of the beach and listen deeply to see if they can recognise emotions felt as I did.

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Ocean Waves Relaxation 10 Hours | Soothing Waves Crashing on Beach | White Noise for Sleep

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Exploring the amazing depth of the ocean.

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Exploring the amazing depth of the ocean.

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I planned my experiences based on my visit to 13th beach. On that day it was cold, raining and incredibly windy, not usual beach weather. Despite the weather, I enjoyed my time walking in the sand, sitting on the dunes and engaging all my senses to experience the ocean.

My first experience will involve the children engaging with the different sounds I heard that day. In a meditation/deep listening type experience I am hoping the children are able to differentiate between the different natural sounds and recognise the emotions or thoughts they bring up.

My second experience will be a movement/dance experience where the children will dance or move like the water. We will go through calm water, rough waves, light waves and deep water. In this experience, my artifact will be the water and exploring the way it moves. The purpose of this experience is to move our bodies in different ways and relate the movement of our bodies to the different movement of the water.

The third experience will be a dramatic play experience and the artifacts we are basing this on is the animals that live in the ocean. We will begin with a group time, discussing the different animals living in the ocean. We will craft a submarine out of recycled materials and set up an experience for ocean explorers! The information discussed in the group time will be displayed, as well as artifacts of different aquatic animals. I am hoping the children are able to engage in pretend and dramatic play as ocean explorers and researchers.

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The session went well, with many of the children engaging the way I envisioned. This exercise worked well as a relaxation/meditation experience for the children and helped them centre themselves after an energetic play session. In reflection, I really would have liked, and I think it would have been more effective, to complete this experience outside amongst the natural world. Unfortunately, we do not have that space in my centre. Overall, the experience went the way I was hoping and the children have developed a basic recognition of deep listening practice.

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This experience is engaging our bodies and really opening up creatively with confidence, by moving and dancing with the movement of the ocean. This focus' on the artifacts of the water and the waves, and the vast complexity of the movement from these artifacts. With inspiration from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECNnG5FTTEQ, I will encourage the children to express themselves by following different ocean movements such as slow waves, big crashing waves, calm bobbing water, deep slow water, etc. We will then follow on the dancing and movement by associating the different motions and speeds of the differing waves to our many emotions. I will ask the children to show me how a happy wave would dance, how would a sleepy or sad wave dance? What about an angry or frustrated wave? By doing this, I will hopefully be able to use the language of dance as a stepping stone to understanding emotions.

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Dancing is often neglected as a specific learning tool in many early learning settings today. It is an amazingly powerful language, where nothing is right or wrong, and children who may not have the most confident voice, can find the power to express themselves (Deans, J. 2016).

Dancing as a group like this will also encourage the development of spatial awareness and creativity (Lewis, J. 2019). By setting no limit on how children express themselves in their movement as the waves, I am hoping the children can be as creative with it as possible.

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The ocean wave dance was a fun experience to complete with the children, and it related well to the artifacts as water and specifically the waves. As a dance, it was slightly limiting, and next time I would give the opportunity for more of a 'dance' and less of a 'movement' exercise.

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Our last activity focuses on the artifacts of the animals in the Ocean. The beach I went to for my visit is notorious for shark sightings, there are also many people always fishing off the beach as it is known to be a good spot for many types of fish. There has even been a few whales spotted out off the break during the mating season.

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An ocean area will be created and children will help with some craft for the environment. We will create an area where we will hang fish, have a boat or submarine and anything else the children feel would be appropriate for ocean explorers. We will have discussions on this during a group time and we can put the children's ideas into implementation. The Children can find pictures and information about any animal they would like to 'explore' and it will be displayed in the area. Children can then use the area any way they wish, dress ups and resources will be available to them.

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Vygotsky and pedagogies based on Vygotskian theories believe, make- believe play is the leading activity in early childhood learning (Hostettler, S.J. 2017). While in this experience, we will complete some craft and a quick group discussion, the main experience will be the dramatic play in the area. It is being more and more accepted, play provides most of the learning for children in the first five years. Pretend play in particular encourages a child's social, and emotional development through the maturing of self-regulation, social compromising and self-esteem. Cognitive development is also aided through pretend play. Children experience and evolution of problem solving skills, literacy and vocabulary as well as building recognition and associations on various topics play is based on (Bodrova, E., & Leong, D.,J. 2006).

When children assist in the set of up their own play space, with their own ideas displayed, a sense of pride shines through. This is the reason I completed this particular experience this way. Through the pride of their ideas being on display, I am anticipating children to creatively throw themselves into being ocean explorers and discover more about what creates live under the waves through the world of dramatic play!

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This experience was wonderful, although not quick! With a short group time, the children were able to speak their ideas and all felt heard without it being too long and the children disengaging. The craft was fun for the children, with individual and group efforts taking place. This once again gave every child then opportunity to contribute and have their interpretations viewed. As did the set up of our underwater area. I always like to include the children in the set up of areas and at a very minimum, use observation and conversations to gain feedback of the set ups. The concept of ocean explorer was understood at a range of levels by the children and one this I would do differently is have another option for the few who were not particularly interested in the 'explorer' component. When completing dramatic play experiences reflecting a natural environment in the future, I will include resources such as dress ups for the use by children who wish to pretend to be the animal. I found what I provided other than the craft a bit limiting for creativity and expression for those who had a different view and way of visualizing the concept.

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                                   References 

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                                   References 

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Bodrova, E., & D,J. (2006) Development of Dramatic Play in Young Children and it's Effects on Self-Regulation: The Vygotskian Approach. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 19(2), 115-124. DOI: 10.1080/0163638980190204

Deans, J. (2016). Thinking, Feeling and Relating: Young Children Learning Through Dance. Australaisian Journal of Early Childhood, 41(3). DOI: 10.1177/18369391160410030

Hamm, C. (2015). Walking With Place: Storying Reconciliation Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education. Canadian Children, 40(2), 56–66.

Hostettler, S.,J. (2017). Supporting Young Children’s Learning in a Dramatic Play Environment. Journal of Childhood Studies, 42(3), 62-69. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v42i3.17895

Mirriam-Rose Ungunmerr. (2018). Dadirri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tow2tR_ezL8

Robson, D. (2021, August 15). Introception:the hidden sense that shapes wellbeing. The Guardian.