Using a famous song that might be familiar for children to know and understand animal sounds. There will be one leader, starting with the educator, and they will take turns to have another child sing “My Name Is.” When the leader appoints a child, the child should make the animal sound.

Showing three movements first to the children and how I call it, ensuring the children are familiar first. Then, I will make a story about crows. I also slip the aboriginal culture into the activity. Whenever I said the words, children had to make the movement accordingly. The story will keep going, and I will put the words in the middle of my story again and let the children move along.

This experience will give children the freedom to act like an animal and imitate their gestures. No talking allowed. I will encourage everyone to be as expressive as they can with their body language. Other children will guess what animal that is.

I extend my experience to more animals. By using familiar songs, children will mirror vocalisations like what I do in assessment 2. Children will build confidence in vocalising animal sounds and engage vocally and rhythmically in a way that feels natural and fun.

As I danced in the previous experience, I will involve storytelling with embedded movement cues. This movement activity will support children’s body-mind connection and offer a multisensory way to process language, rhythm, and plot. This activity also enables children to practice listening and responding, enhancing their physical literacy.

I tried role-playing as a little crow that learned how to fly in my prior experience, so I would like to let the children be expressive in role-playing animals they know. I learned how powerful non-verbal communication is. In this activity, children are asked to express themselves non-verbally, building skills in imaginative thinking, empathy, and non-verbal communication. It also challenges them to interpret others’ ideas and intentions.

This activity aligns with the Reggio Emilia approach, where children are capable and competent. My open-ended activity allows children to be creative and express their interests, particularly in animals. The Reggio Emilia approach also uses music as one of the hundred languages that children use to communicate (Edward et al., 2011). According to Bond (2013), music supports building children's identity, emotional development, and connection with others.

Children will be able to lead the experience, make choices, and express ideas, which can also develop their social and communication skills. This also reflects Vygotsky's theory about social social-contructivism, how the child learns from their social, cultural, and environmental experiences.

Using storytelling as a tool is having a high impact on children's development. Especially with the context that is hard to be processed by children, like Aboriginal and Indigenous perspectives. Using storying also helps me honour Aboriginal ways of knowing, particularly the oral and performative traditions that have long been used to share knowledge, values, and culture.  One of the principles of storiying is that “embodied relational meaning making” (Slater, 2020, p. 14), in which we try to connect the hard context and process the idea so children can interpret the meaning.

Gardner's theory about multiple intelligences highlights that children learn in different ways, so even body movement learning is also valid as logical or numeracy knowledge. As children move when they hear keywords like "caw caw" or mimic gestures inspired by the crow, they’re not just learning to follow instructions but more like actively participating in constructing the rhythm and emotion of the story.

Role-playing or pretend play used to be underestimated by people because children are just having fun and not learning anything. But actually, “the imaginary world of children helps them learn many critical concepts about the real world” (Wilson, 2008, p. 2).

Moreover, this activity reflects the Reggio Emilia approach, which sees children as capable communicators who use many forms of symbolic expression. Children are not only imitating animals but also learning the context meaning and communicating the idea through non-verbal communication. This supports Vygotsky's theory that stated imaginative play could assist in developing children’s cognitive area and social area.

Title: “My name is…?”

EYLF Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022, p. 50)

This activity uses familiar songs for children to be confident in vocal expression and follow the rhythm. Guiding them first to know the basic animals, children will show more knowledge about other animals, and it could be that they are interested too. This also will make children become involved learners, they learn from their peers the other animals’ names and sounds.

Materials needed: Speaker, Downloaded “My Name Is” song for introduction.

Lesson steps:

• Gather the children into the play space.

• Briefly introduce the activity, and ask them whether they know the song or not.

• The educator will model the activity as a leader with the basic animals and test their knowledge.

• Try again with different kinds of animals.

• Children take turns to lead the activity.

• Reflect with children about the recent activity, such as “What animal do you like the most?” or ”What animal’s sound surprised you?”

Title: Crows in Motion

EYLF Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of well-being (AGDE, 2022), especially in physical and mental well-being. Children use sensory integration, like hearing and moving. Ask them to be focused and ready to move along with the story. Combining gross and fine motor movement to build core strength and increase movement skills.

EYLF Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Children respect towards the Aboriginal perspective on crows is one of their spiritual entities, even an ancestor that protects the land.

Materials needed: Prepared Crow's Story that infused movement words of crows.

Lesson Steps:

• Gather the children into the play space.

• Briefly introducing crows and the Aboriginal perspectives about crows.

• Explain the activity and show the movement for every chosen word. The chosen words are "Caw Caw” when crows are soaring, “Hop Hop” when they are looking for food, and “Flap Flap” when they are flying high.

• Tell a story that is infused with the chosen words, and let’s see whether children can move together when educators tell the words.

• Wrap up and reflect with children about the recent activity, such as, “Which movement did you like most?” or “What did you notice about the way we used our bodies to tell a story?”

Title: “Who am I?” Animal Charades

EYLF Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators (AGDE, 2022, p. 57). Children will be encouraged to use more of their senses, like eye contact or body language, to express their communication instead of talking at this activity. This dramatic role play also alsosupports non-verbal communication; they are able to explore gesture, pose, symbolic, or other forms of expression to construct their message.

With this activity, we provide an inclusive space where communication isn't limited by verbal ability, and children are also able to respect other diverse ways of communicating, especially when engaging with peers who may have disabilities or communicate differently.

Materials needed: No material is required.

Lesson Steps:

• Gather the children into the play space.

• Briefly introduce the activity by saying, “Today we are going to play a drama game where we act like animals—but we won’t use any words or sounds—just our bodies!”

• Demonstrate the activity and invite children to guess the animal.

• Let other children become leaders and make a dramatic movement of the animals, ensure they have vivid visual imaginations before they execute.

• Children take turns to lead the activity.

• Wrap up and reflect with children about the recent activity, such as, “Was it hard or easy to show an animal without words?”

Children follow the instructions and show their knowledge about animals’ names and sounds. They are focused on listening and executing the animal sound correctly, according to the leader. Children showing confidence in vocalising the animal’s sound.

What did not go as expected?

Children were not following the music rhythm, and although they were enthusiastic with the activity, the timing was still sometimes off-beat. Children can identify the animals and how they sound, but coordinating them rhythmically still requires support.

What might you do differently next time?

Next time, I will play the song fully first and let them really familiarise themselves with the beat and rhythm. I also could slow down the beat according to their capabilities following the song. I will encourage them to do body percussion to enrich the song.

How might you use this growth in your future practice of early childhood education?

This activity highlights the importance of scaffolding before expecting the children to engage with music activities, especially if they include rhythm and beats. In my future practices, I will keep the open-ended activities like this to let children express themselves freely, not forgetting to use music and vocalisation more to build their confidence. I will also be more mindful of providing multi-sensory cues to support children with different learning styles.

Children follow the movement correctly when I say the chosen words, like “Caw Caw,” and their bodies move accordingly. They also showed that they were engaged and able to make the connection between the storytelling cues and physical actions.

What did not go as expected?

One of the children is not enthusiastic, and they do not know crows. So it's a bit hard to infuse the Aboriginal perspective when they're not familiar with it. This highlighted the importance of background knowledge and the need for pre-teaching.

What might you do differently next time?

In future practice, I will show the object that I want them to learn, which in this case is the crows, so they have background knowledge. I will also incorporate more of Aboriginal culture into my teaching, like the dream story time and their entities, slowly to the children so they can gradually understand the context and meaning.

How might you use this growth in your future practice of early childhood education?

This activity taught me that introducing cultural perspectives requires thoughtful planning. I also learn that using movement as a medium can maintain children's physical and mental well-being while supporting cognitive development like memorisation.

Children freely imagine their chosen animal and picture them through role-playing. The activity is also very fun, which shows in the children laughing together while guessing the animal’s name.

What did not go as expected?

Children do not take the initiative to act or become a lead, one of them is shy, so you have to push them by appointing them directly to participate.

What might you do differently next time?

Next time, I will start with a warm-up to let the children feel more at ease and less pressured. I also will do more collaboration amongst the peers so they do not act alone. Using an animal draw card also could be an option, making it easier for shy children to step in with structure and support.

How might you use this growth in your future practice of early childhood education?

This activity helped me understand the importance of reading children's emotional readiness during expressive activities. I will ensure that children do not feel like outcasts but feel safe and belong to the class. Therefore, I will implement warm-up and choice-based involvement, particularly in drama, to support both confident and hesitant learners. I’ll also continue to use drama as a tool to foster empathy, confidence, and creative expression.

This unit helps my understanding that so many forms of expression align with the Reggio Emilia approach, the “hundred languages” of children, which makes me confident to incorporate music, movement, and drama into my teaching practice.

Bond, V. L. (2013). Follow and facillitate: What music educator can learn from the Reggio Emilia approach. General Music Today (Vol. 27, pp. 24-28). Sage. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live$db=eric&AN=EJ1019859&authtype=shib&custid=s1145751

Edwards, C. P., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. E. (2011). The Hundred Language of Children: The Reggio Emillia experience in transformation (3rd ed.). ABC-CLIO.

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/reader.action?docID=820317

Slater, O. J. E. (2020). Storying: A reflection on entanglements with Indigenous Australian methodology. Cambridge Educational Research E-journal, 8, 9-17. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.58324

Wilson, R. A. (2008). Children, creative play, and the natural environment. Nature and young children: Encouraging creative play and learning in natural environment (pp. 1-18). Routledge. ISBN: 9780415428712