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Over the past 9 weeks I have been completing my first placement at St James Parish School in Sebastopol, I have been working with approximately 15-30 children aged 0-5 every Tuesday at their community playgroup. As I see the children in my playgroup as individuals rather than a collective I wanted to create an activity that allowed them to express themselves as individuals and allows them to come and go as they please. The activity me and my group decided to do focused on sensory, music and movement. For this we had sensory mats on the floor with place cards of movements the children can do such as jump, turn around and freeze! We also had some instruments for the children to play with while they play on the mats such as tambourines and shakers which they really enjoyed. To incorporate the Aboriginal theme and be inclusive of the Wathaurong original owners of the land which we have been focusing on in playgroup, we decided to include some indigenous dance music that the children could dance to and follow the sounds and movement in the music while playing on the mats as they are very active and enjoy the dancing we do in group time. With my movement question being “how do children move differently as individuals” I knew for this activity I needed to have a way for them to work independently but also as a collective, so I could get an insight on how each child worked best.

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The activity we completed went well and mostly to plan, as we have children of all different ages coming and going it was hard to get them to finish the whole activity and join in with the music and dancing we tried to incorporate. I noticed that with this activity the younger children’s instincts were to grab the instruments and play as loud as they can which was great! But they were not interested in the place cards and sensory mats as much as the older children were. Another thing I noticed was how much the children were or were not moving with the music depending on the song that was playing, I noticed they enjoyed one song in particular called ‘Koori Dreamtime’ where it tells them to jump like a kangaroo which they found entertaining to do while jumping onto one sensory map to the next.

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Overall, I believe our activity went to plan, the children we happy and really enjoyed playing the instruments with the music. I was expecting the younger ones and parents to get more involved with the place cards as it would be a great opportunity to start teaching them those motor skills, I believe if we had more time and the children saw others doing it they might’ve joined in.If I had another chance to make this activity better I would suggest a few things, firstly I would suggest using the song ‘Koori Dreamtime’ as the main song and possibly getting the children into small groups and learning the dance for the song using the instruments and even incorporating the Bunjil and Waa puppets to make it even more engaging. Another change I would make would be to make our place cards and sensory mats bigger and make it a big activity rather than a small activity set up in the corner, this way its more inviting and more of an obstacle course which I know they love.        Reflecting on this activity and my movement question I still believe that children work better as individuals rather than in a group. Especially in this activity as it has the children thinking about where they need to go next with the place cards and how to use the music and instruments while jumping around, although I do believe that the dance section of the activity would be done better as a group that was not the highlight of the activity. Thinking about these children as individuals while engaging with them and helping them through the activities truly opened my eyes up to how every child learns and moves differently, some could get through the activity in a few minuets where others would be easily distracted or needed to be guided through it. The one thing I am thinking about after completing this activity is how we can have children work as independent individuals but in a group? Working at their own pace, moving backwards and forwards as they please without the pressure of other children or educators pushing them along.