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This activity will be conducted during mat time before home time. I collected rosemary plant stems with beautiful purple flowers on each of the stems as this is flower season for this plant. I have decided to give one stem on each child’s hand invite them to smell it’s fragrance and notice the shape of its leaves, feel the texture. I will explain to children it is used in cooking, and its name is rosemary herb. Then we are going to do a short song and movement activity by holding rosemary stem in our right hand and move that hands following the song instructions. And the song goes “Up and down, right and left and round and round and round it goes”. This song and movement we can do slow and fast and change the sequence of the song to make it more interesting and challenging once children get familiar with its actions.

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I have decided to plan a painting activity outdoors.  For this activity I will be using Paint palettes, paint brushes, water, paper and some natural materials from our treasure hunt for provocation in bowl. The learning outcomes I am intending for children to support their creativity, connection to nature and fine motor skills.

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I have planned this experience for 3-year-old Kinder room as we are towards the end of the year most of the children have turned four now.

For this activity I have planned to collect natural materials that are found on the ground of our Kinder bush garden such as dry grass, dry leaves, tree bark, sticks and gumnuts.  As we are planning to visit bush garden this week, I am planning to invite children to become treasure hunters and look for this material as they explore bush garden.

My thought process in planning this activity is for children to form connection with the land as they engage in dramatic play, where they pretend to be treasure hunters looking for treasure. Children will develop their language skills as they listen to the instructions from the educator and learn names of the natural material.

Physical development as they move around to look for their treasure.

Fundamental math (value) concept development as they are pretending dry leaves to be treasure.

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During my country visit I remember smelling gum leaves and listening to the sound of leaves moving with the breeze, it was a very soothing and calming experience. In this activity I have tried to incorporate that experience by encouraging children to use their sense of smell, touch and sight to engage with natural material while making it fun and interesting for them with song and movement activity. Julia Hollander in her radio interview, mentions that any form of musical education during one’s life is beneficial and can help in retaining language and hearing during old age (Hollander, J., 2023).

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During mat time as I handed rosemary stems, children held them with great care making sure they do not break the Flowers on them.

They showed curiosity by listening carefully to information about it and participated in trying to name the dishes that have this herb it. They smelled the herb. Children contribute their ideas by expressing their thoughts a some said they liked its flowers, and some shared they are going to give it to their mom and dad when they come to pick them up, and some decided to keep it for themselves.

Children quickly picked up the actions from the song and movement activity. That allowed me to make the song fast and slow to make it more challenging and fun for children. Next time I will try to change the sequence of the song as well.

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During my country visit for assessment 2, I observed several natural materials such as sticks, banksia seed pods and rock on the ground I visited which reminded me of how my children used to love collecting them when they were young.

During dramatic play children learn self-regulation as they cooperate with other children and educators while continuing their task as per mentioned in The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early (Meyers, A., Berk, L., 2014).

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I explained to children before going to bush garden about our treasure hunt game.

As we reached children gathered around me to play the treasure hunt game,  I pick up dry leaves fist as it was  easiest to spot, children ran with excitement and returned with dry leaves in their hands and I repeated the process with rest of the material  and as we had found all of the items some children kept on looking for their favorite natural material, where as some children decided to play their own games such as jumping form tree log and making camp fire.

Next time we can play this game with lot of other topics, for example, taking pictures of local birds found in bush garden and looking for them.

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I noticed different colors of nature during my county walk different shades of green and brown with changing season, color of water and soil dry leave and grass birds and insects. Through this experience I would like children to look at the natural material in the bowl as inspiration for their paintings.

I would like children to take inspiration from their natural environmernt for their paintings. I believe children are naturally curious and capable learners. This further links with Reggio Emilia approach that sees children as capable learner are encouraged to actively engage with their environment and express themselves through multiple paths/ languages including creative expression (Edwards, C. P., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. E. 2011).

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It was beautiful day sun was out. I set up the activity on the half cercle tables. Children started to join the activity by  painting on the paper, however eventually a child picked up stick and started to paint on it, he looked at me and  said, “ I am painting  just like Bunurong people”  I asked how did he knew about this, the child replied “ I have lots of books at my home about Bunurong people” and continued to paint. Other children on the table as well started to take natural resources from the bowl to paint on them. This activity turned into a much deeper learning experience than what I planned for.

To further extend on this experience I am planning to find books relating to Bunurong people and read them to children to further develop our knowledge and understanding.