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When I laid my eyes on the vibrant purple wisteria bush, they were swaying and dancing in synchronization with the wind while bowing their head towards the sky, like they were dancing in joy to pay their respects for bringing life back to the country. The bees were dancing around the flowers hopping and bumping from one flower to another creating a range of abstract movements.

Imagine life without movement! We are born to move our bodies. Even the hearing impaired people can feel the vibrations of the music and they feel the rhythm in their body in order to move and sway with the beat of the music. As much as music is a part of being human, movement is also as important.

As per Creative dance in early Childhood (2020), dancing in nature creates opportunities for children to touch and sense through a changing landscape. Dance and movement on natural spaces with grass or sand sparks their thoughts and vocabulary about how they feel in all their senses (Creative Dance for Early Childhood, 2020). Moving in the wild is in our bones. Our indigenous ancestors danced in rituals to celebrate all aspects of life: birth, death, harvest and rites of passage. They communicated with the spirits of the land and moved with these spirits in ceremony (Movement in the Wild: Nature as Dance Partner - the Earthbody Institute, 2017). For example, watching lake cowal bird dance taught by Uncle Winnie, help us understand the nature of the bird while urging how important it is to conserve their natural habitats. (Lake Cowal Bird Dance - Uncle Winnie (Winata Puru), n.d.). This also reminds me of our traditional dances in Sri Lanka, where they perform different movement patterns to different birds such as Peacock, Swan etc.

To incorporate movement in my daily practices as a preservice teacher, I will provide children with opportunities to connect with nature while moving and exploring with their senses. Also, I will introduce different movement patterns inspired by the different animals and birds.

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Watching the clouds in the sky always makes me wonder what it creates when the clouds gather and wonder around the sky changing its shapes and sizes to mimic different images. When I went into the backyard and when I witnessed the cutdown dried branches, the clouds in the sky looked like they were irritated by the act of cutting down the trees. The wind that blew across the garden also added a sense of suspense and horror. But when I heard the birds singing, I felt hopeful, and the clouds looked like their hearts melted and showered the earth in rain of sympathy.

Creating environments that give our youngest learners the time, space, and opportunities to explore and investigate will provide meaningful learning experiences. We can create engaging and wonder-filled environments that promote learning through all eight of their senses—auditory, gustatory, visual, olfactory, tactile, vestibular, proprioception, and interoception. (Gano & Krull, 2020). When creating play spaces for young children, it should include opportunities for children to explore, manipulate and seclusion to develop a sense of place to bring its unique characteristics. Complexity, diversity, opportunities for immersion or direct encounters with the natural world, and opportunities for experiencing “magical moments” can also contribute to a “sense of place” experience. (Wilson, 2018). I strongly agree with the above statements based on my personal experiences. I grew up playing outdoors making our own playhouses with tree branches and role-playing real-life scenarios in our play episodes. We had the freedom to roam in nature resourcing our play using natural materials while exploring and developing our learning dispositions.

Hence, I would like to provide children with opportunities and access to nature and resources to build on their creativity and imagination to encourage dramatic play.

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Listening to the birds singing outside, brings a feeling of relaxation and calm and evoke happy memories from my childhood where I listened to the birds singing outside my window in synchronization with the other sounds in the nature. The calls of the birds help me imagine how barren it would be if this beautiful life around us extinct due to harmful acts of humans. This experience was a reminder that how important it is to role model and teach sustainable practices to our younger generations to preserve all living beings around us.

Allara Briggs-Patterson’s “Wala is life” song and her approach of connecting sounds of nature and aboriginal culture to make music is inspirational to us as preservice teachers. It shows us how we can combine different sounds of the nature to create different melodies and rhythms to make soothing music (Wala Is Life, by Allara, n.d.). This can help children connect to the nature and embrace the indigenous cultures and their way of life.

In the Dadirri video, Miriam Rose Ungunmerr explains that “To know me is to breathe with me, to breathe with me is to listen deeply, to listen deeply is to connect” (MiriamRoseFoundation, 2017). When I close my eyes and listen deeply, I find peace like in a silent meditation. Therefore, I have started practicing inner deep listening with the children where I lie down with the children and listen with our eyes and ears to the sounds we can hear and things we can see in the sky. It brings calm and satisfaction to children and helps all of us live and enjoy the moment. I will also provide them with indigenous musical instruments such as rain sticks and clap sticks to create music. I will also encourage children to use sounds of the bush such as the chuckling of the kookaburras and melodies of the magpies to bring deeper connection to country.

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For my on-country visit experience, I visited my brother’s backyard. It is full of life, and I enjoy watching nature’s drama and listening to the sounds of nature and urbanization that creates a soundscape collecting different sounds from the environment. This place brings me sense of connection to place and it helps me explore my senses while practicing my mindfulness.

My brother had cut down overgrown rose vines and branches of the trees which reminded me of the effects of deforestation. But the flowers that danced and swayed to the rhythm of the wind brought life to the surroundings. The birds sang songs in harmony with each other while hiding in the branches of the trees. The wind blew through the garden adding another melody to the birdsongs.

R Murray Schafer explains that the world is a composition of music going around us with no beginning or end. We have sound over kill and it is up to us to reduce the number of sounds and listen. “Listen carefully, life is enhanced” (Canada, 2009). It is important that we learn to listen to our surroundings with all our senses and practice to be in the moment and role model the same with children to enhance their life to help them grow up to become calm and mindful individuals.

Through these teachings I have become aware of the importance of slowing down and being with the children and the moment listening deeply to nature and the around us. This can be as simple as watching the clouds go by in the sky with the children, looking at the trees and plants sway in the wind, watching the birds fly past and listen to them singing. It helps us connect with the place and be in the moment making moments matter enhancing and enriching their imagination and creativity.