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This morning, the wind was howling and blowing with long loud sounds. We went outside to listen to the sounds of the wind and the natural elements in our kinder yard. We closed our eyes and listened carefully to the different sounds we could hear, we heard the wind in the trees, and rustling leaves around us. We also talked about the concept of “Dadirri” a deep listening skill the Aboriginal peoples of the Daly River region practice.

The children and I discussed how to replicate the wind’s sounds using instruments. We gathered different natural materials like sand, water, pebbles, leaves, and timber from the yard, and asked our centre chef for some recycled yogurt containers. The children used these resources to design and create their own nature shakers.

After assembling the shakers, we gathered around the garden bed and performed a natural sounds music concert by using their DIY instruments.

Learning Achieved: This sound and music activity helped children to develop an aware of the nature environment and the nature sounds, and how nature can inspire music. They also developed an understanding of tempo, volume, and rhythm. And the most important part is they enjoyed their DIY music and had a lot of fun.

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Inspired by the Sound/Music and Movement /Dance experience we had, the children and I decided to create a short movie that combined both elements into a dramatic performance. Children made their own decisions took different task and different responsibility during the movie making.

In our darkened well-being room, we have two lighting engineer held torches to create light and shadow effects, while two composer played their DIY nature sounds shakers to mimic the sounds of wind and rain. Two actors performed the tree dance in front of a big wall. And one cameraman filmed the entire performance with an iPad. Additional natural sounds were played in the background by myself to enhance the atmosphere. The children did such great job to improvised their role to created a collaborative movie drama about the shadows of the trees on a scary night.

Learning Achievement:

During this experience, the children developed their creativity and imagination of storytelling, and collaborative skills by creating a short drama performance that combines sound and movement.

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Another windy day in the kinder yard, the children noticed all trees were swaying in the winds side to side just like their are celebrating and dancing together. We inspired by the tree movements and decided to mimic their dance. We stood in front of the trees and observed how the branches shakes. We imagined ourselves as trees. The children danced by waving their arms and bodies just like the branches being blown by the heavy wind. We explored different types of movements, from gentle sways to energetic shakes, jumps, twists. We explored. Our body and enjoyed our tree dancing in the yard.

Learning Achieved:

During this fun movement and dancing experience, children developed their physical expression, body awareness, and connection to nature through embody the movement of the tree. Children also explored the connection between movement and nature, and how to use their body to communicate ideas and emotions.

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Connection to AT2:

In my AT2 experience, I was inspired by the natural sounds in my backyard, especially the wind, birds, and the construction moose that disrupted the environment. Similarly, the Wind Symphony activity drew from this idea by offering the opportunity for children to use their deep listening skills to observe and recreate the natural sounds they heard in their environment.

Theoretical Perspectives:

This activity aligns with the concept of “Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Still Awareness” from the tradition practice of Dadirri - Deep Listening, as described by Miriam- Roae Ungubmerr-Baumann. In this activity children were encouraged to listen deeply to the nature sound, they experienced stillness and attentiveness.

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Connection to AT2:

In my AT2, I created a shadow dance mimic the bird's movements inspired by the natural elements in my backyard. Similarly, the Dancing Tree experience deeply drew upon the natural movements observed in the kinder yard. This experience encourage the children to embody the sway and rhythm of the trees in the winds.

Theoretical Perspectives:

This experience is inspired by Ariana Candell’s article “ Movement in the Wild: Nature as Dance Partner”. Candell highlight how the nature world can inspire movement and reminding us that our body have stronge connection with the nature. In my experience, the children connected tree with their body, by observing the movement of the branches and imitating their movement.

Ruth Wilson also advocated how natural environment stimulate creativity and physical activity in children in his book. The Tree Dancing experience allowing children to explore their movement while interacting with the natural world.

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Connection to AT2:

In my AT2 experience, I created a shadow dance with natural elements like wind, birds dance, thunder noise. Similarly, in the Tree Symphony Movie, the children created light, shadow, and sounds to tell a story through drama. By combining these sensory elements together, children engaged with the environment on a deeper level, just like I did in my AT2.

Theoretical Perspectives:

In “ The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood” highlights how play fosters social collaboration and peer learning. During this drama experience, all the children worked together to assign roles, and performed as a group. This strongly aligned with the book’s emphasis on how collaborative play help children to develop their social skills.

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Maintaining the stillness during the Dadirri inspired nature listen exercise was quite difficult, the children were more willing to active communication and interaction. The children were only able to maintain their quiet focus for about 20 seconds. Next time, I might break the quiet listening into shorter and more frequent segments. Also Allowing children to share what they hear immediately after the silence may be able to help their needs.

The children eengaged very well in the creative process of making instruments and performing the concert, they even showed their great social skills by spontaneously deciding to take turns to be the conductor and lead the group in playing their instruments.

This experience showed the value of integrating natural materials into music making and how children’s music Learning can be enhanced by exploring the nature of sensory elements. In the future I plan to incorporate more nature-inspired sounds and music activities in my program.

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The children fully engaged with the experience, they mimicking the movements of the trees and had a lots of fun usi g their body to explore different types of tree movements, they even used their imaginations and creativities to created some new movements. They showed their ability to translate the tree movement into their own creative dance. Next time I bring the children out when it’s raining, I wonder what type of Rain Dance the children will create.

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Engaging with this unit have changed my perspective on teaching music, dance, and drama. I see the meaningful impacton the integration of the music, dance, and drama to gether in early childhood setting.

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Wilson, R. (2007). Children, creative play, and the natural environment. In R. Wilson,

Nature and Young Children : Encouraging Creative Play and Learning in Natural Environments (pp. 1-18). Routledge.

Arianaca. (2017, April 10). Movement in the Wild: Nature as Dance Partner - The Earthbody Institute. The Earthbody Institute. https://www.theearthbodyinstitute.com/2017/03/movement-in-the-wild-nature-as-dance-partner/

Miriam Rose Foundation. (2021, April 13). Dadirri - Miriam Rose Foundation. https://www.miriamrosefoundation.org.au/dadirri/

Brooker, L., Blaise, M., & Edwards, S. (2014). The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood. In SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473907850

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