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Expereince 1: Creating Music with Nature (sound)

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Expereince 1: Creating Music with Nature (sound)

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Experience 2: Rhythm of Nature (movement)

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Experience 2: Rhythm of Nature (movement)

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When I was on my on-country visits for assessment 2, I was very inspired by the experience to create a short song, taking inspiration from the environment. As much as I am proud of that piece, I believe my understanding as deepened since then, particularly in relation to how the experiences children have IN nature is important for a child to have a positive perspective of nature overall (Wilson, 2007/2018). So, I wanted to build off of my original idea of creating some form of song/music for this sound experience.

In this experience, each participant gets time to look through the natural environment to find something to create a sound. We want to foster respect for the environment, and create an understanding that the natural elements are not for us to damage or take from Place. Once each individual has decided how they want to make noise, we then all together create music from natures elements (this could be through banging, shaking, stomping etc.)

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Although this is mainly a movement experience, I choose to start this with a listening activity to make the movement more significant. From what I understand of Dadirri (Ungunmerr, 1988), true and authentic listening to ones environment requires more than just a quick listen to the obvious sounds one can here. It is about listening to want Country is telling you, and taking the time to understand and respect the answer. I think with the stronger understanding of Ungunmerr's (1988) deep listening, I was able to do a more fulfilling job then my previous times for my on-country visits for assessment two. For my movement/dance experience, I wanted to give the participants a chance to physically express and demonstrate what they hear and show how that makes them feel.

Simply, this experience involves a short exercise of really being within the natural environment, and listening to all the sounds, smells and feelings you sense. Then it is up to the individual to express what they feel, see, hear in whatever movement speaks to them.

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When it comes to drama, it was the most difficult of the temporal arts for me to think of as more than it's simple form; acting or dramatic/imaginary play. I wanted to challenge myself with the growth of knowledge I have had since assessment two. It is important to understand that nature itself is a dramatic and inspiring being, and that the sense of wonder that you may feel as child can be rediscovered if you allow yourself you truly let go, and create (Carson, 2017). I felt that I didn't push myself to include drama in a strong or authentic way for assessment 2, so with this in mind, my drama experience is focusing on the dramatics we can find within nature.

This is quite an open-ended activity, participants are encouraged to use shadows and the natural elements in tandem. It's is up to them to discover the best positions for sunlight to hit, if they want to create something in a group or by themselves, if they want to use their whole body or not, and most importantly what they want see in their shadow creation. The goal is to create shadows in an open, natural space, and have the creations reflect what the participants see or what to explore.

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Lesson Steps: Creating Music with Nature

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Lesson Steps: Creating Music with Nature

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1. Begin with an acknowledgement of country.

2. Start by telling participants that "we are going to be making music today, and each of you get to choose your own instrument".

3. Inform them that we are going to be using the natural elements here in this area as our 'instruments' and that they can make sounds in whatever way they would like. It is important to mention that their instrument can be themselves (such as stomping or using body parts, or even voice if they choose) or using something else (such as shaking leaves or using sticks).

4. Before they begin looking for and experimenting with possible instruments discuss that if they want to use sticks/leaves/etc. that it needs to be on the ground and have already fallen off the tree. It is important they know that we are not here to cause damage to the environment, therefore if we choose to hit sticks against a tree trunk, we must do so in a way that isn't damaging for what is still alive.

5. I think this is a great place to remind children of the importance of respecting our environment and natural world (Wilson, 2007/2018), as well as looking after Country with the same respect that Aboriginal peoples do.

6. I gave my participants about 3mins to choose their instrument, and then we began to play. I simply asked if everyone was ready to do, and then the music begins. There is NO right or wrong in this activity, and the idea is not to create a 'perfect piece' of music, so as the educator it's important to allow children to go about this activity as they feel fit.

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1. Begin with an acknowledgment of country.

2. Ask participants what they can hear. Then explain that we are going to try to listen to what Place is telling us (Ungunmerr, 1988). Explain that First Nations people have a deep respect and understanding of their lands, and that we are going to try to listen the lands feelings and mood.

3. Ask everyone to close their eyes and allow time for them to use all their senses to listen and understand the environment (I gave my participants 90 secs but it can be adjusted for the age or experience of the group).

4. Then explain that we are going to try to express/demonstrate what we heard, but without our voices. Give an example and demonstrate: I said that I really heard the wind, I could feel it lifting my hair and pushing against me, so I was going to try to move in the same way I felt the wind was if it was in my body.

5. It may seem quite chaotic, but the more messy and different each persons movements are, the better their deep listening would have been. Give adequate time (we did this for about 60sec at first) for this before you prompt with questions such as:

What else did you feel?

Do you think 'it' would move differently if it was trying to communicate with something else?

I thought that the 'grass' would push up through the ground like this, how do you think it would?

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1. Begin with an acknowledgment of country, then situate the group in an area that allows our shadows to be easily seen (this activity is ideally done on a sunny day in an open area).

2. Start by pointing out a shadow of a tree (or participant), something obvious, try to gauge an understanding of the knowledge around what shadows are through basic questioning and if any/all/none of the participants have purposefully created a shadow before. We can determine the level of guided learning we as the adult will need to do in comparison to child-led play and discussion. Both should be a part of the experience, but it is important to understand how much we can let the participants lead without an educators direct guidance (Department of Education and Training, 2016).

3. Now is the time to begin creating the shadows, allow participants to go to where they prefer, and allow them to struggle and work through creating the shadows. As the educator, participation by us gives inspiration and a starting point, so get involved!

4. Point out other parts of nature, such as the birds or a bug and encouraging participants to try to make them, providing direction and structure while still allowing the participants to be the creative directors is the aim here.

5. It would be great to bring groups back to the same Place at different times of the day, to see how shadows form differently depending on external factors.

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Overall, I was quite happy with how these experiences turned out. Unfortunately, I did not have access to kids for these activities, so I used my parents as the participants. I think that if I was to implement any of the three experiences with children, especially at the age of early childhood, there would likely be quite a bit more adult led or guided learning necessary. Children still get to have control and have some input when an activity is adult-led, which means that the overall activity would be the same, it just might be more scaffolded or the adults will have a more hands on role (Department of Education and Training, 2016) than I did. This is due to the comprehension levels and understanding my participants had, I was able to explain what we were doing, and they quickly understood and took to it. This is particularly in relation to the first (music/sound) and third (drama) activities.

Something I would like to change or add to these experiences is a way to wrap them up succinctly and with purpose. At the end of all three experiences, I realised that it just stopped when the participants are done but there was no wrapping up or clear finishing point, I believe I just said "alright thats it". Which doesn't really allow the activity to be open-ended or leave for conversations to grow. Considering the importance of giving children positive outdoor experiences to foster respect and understanding for nature (Wilson, 2007/2018), on reflection I would love to end the activity with a small discussion on Indigenous perspective, respect for Place and Country, or respect for the environment. It would have been great to be able to link the nature play we did to one of these and to foster the beginning of an relationship or entanglement between the participants, Place and nature (Wilson, 2018).

When taking part in Rhythm of Nature (experience 2), I found myself prompting the participants and stepping in to get the activity going. I think I lost focus and forgot that as much as deep listening (Ungunmerr, 1988) now made sense to me, I was introducing a new and difficult topic and wanted the activity to get moving. If I had the chance to do this again (with the same or new participants) I would really allow them time to take in the idea, and see what they pick out to embody, even if it takes a while. When looking back at the activity itself, this is the most important part as it fosters appreciation for the environment we are in.

For Seeing Shadows (experience 3), I kept the focus in my mind on allowing participants to discover in whatever way they wanted. I assumed it would be by creating shapes and birds or trees with their hands, but one participant was only using their body in front of the sun. I chose not to step in here and redirect because this was the experience THEY wanted to have with shadows and this was them experimenting. They then moved on to try something else, but I was glad that they had that chance to discover in a way that felt comfortable and exciting for them.

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Carson, R. (2017). The sense of wonder : a celebration of nature for parents and children. Harper Perennial. https://research.ebsco.com/c/m7hw3i/search/details/tgfkzhw27v?db=nlebk

Department of Education and Training. (2016). Victorian early years learning and development framework. Department of Education and Training. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/childhood/providers/edcare/veyldframework.pdf

Ungunmerr, M.-R. (1988). Dadirri Inner Deep Listening and Quiet Still Awareness. https://vucollaborate.vu.edu.au/content/enforced/1816406-ECE2008-1-2023-HWB-151670/Dadirri_Handout%20(1)%20(1).pdf?ou=2253526

Wilson, R. (2018). Nature and Young Children (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315148533 (Original work published 2007)

Wilson, R. (2018). Nature play. Nature and Young Children, 5–17. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315148533-2