• Activity 1: Music - Wind Symphony: The sound of the wind "playing background music" and the birds "calling each other to watch the parade" are transformed into this activity, where children use natural sounds to create music. Children will listen and explore natural sounds, especially the sound of the wind, then use loose parts to create a wind instrument. This activity encourages children to listen and create music from the things around them.

• Activity 2: Movement - Flying Dragons: Vehicles become "flying dragons" which inspired this activity, encouraging children to explore their body movements through imagination. Children will imagine themselves as flying dragons, moving to the music and exploring different ways of moving: undulating, soaring, taking off and landing. This activity helps children develop gross motor skills and body expressions, while stimulating their imagination.

• Activity 3: Drama - Interact with the tree soldiers: Trees "wave friendly hellos" become the basis for this activity, where children role-play and interact with the environment as living characters. Children will participate in a mini drama, in which trees come to life. Children use their voices, gestures, and imagination to "talk" to the tree - asking questions, sharing feelings, or just listening to what the tree might say back. This activity helps children develop communication skills, role-playing skills and empathy for nature.

These three activities will encourage children to use their senses to explore their surroundings, transforming familiar sounds, movements and sights into a colorful imaginary world. Allowing children to transform natural objects into other things (trees into friends, wind into musical instruments) helps foster creativity. These also strongly demonstrate the importance of imaginative play in children's development. "The way children play with or talk about their imaginative friends can tell you a lot about how they’re feeling" (raisingchildren.net.au the Australian parenting website, n.d.). Furthermore, these activities focus on multisensory learning as they encourage children to use their hearing (listening to the wind, birds), sight (observing trees, dragon moving), and touch (touching leaves, tree trunks) to interact with the world around them. "When children use their senses as they explore their world through sensory play, they are actively building nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, which is crucial to brain development" (Diann Gano, Sharron Krull, 2020). And as Wilson suggested “Fostering an environmental ethic involves not only learning about nature but also learning through nature.” (Wilson, 2017, p.6) by interacting with trees and the wind, children develop their connection with the country and appreciation and awareness of protecting the environment. These three activities also along with the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners and Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world.

Materials:

• Loose parts, recycled materials such as plastic bottles, tin cans, bamboo tubes, shells, dry leaves, rope, and so on.

• Video filmed on the way to work with sounds from nature and video of nature sounds with strong and gentle wind.

Lesson Steps:

1. Gather children together.

2. Acknowledgement of the Country at the beginning. Introduce the idea that Aboriginal people listen deeply to the land and learn from its sounds.

3. Tell a story about the experience, for example, on the way to work today, the bird friends informed teacher of a royal parade, and we heard a wind concert. On the road not just cars, we saw Dragon gliding around and the tree said "Hello" and waved with us. (Play a video you recorded on your way to work while tell the story).

4. Introduce the first activity: Today, we will be musicians and listen to the sounds of the wind. Can you hear the wind singing? (If the weather is not windy, you can turn on the background sound of the wind and the sound of birds for children)

5. Introduce loose parts to children and suggest that they can make musical instruments from loose parts. For example, you can tie dry leaves to a string to make a wind chime and show children.

6. Hang the instruments in a windy area if available or move them around to make sounds.

7. Invite children to describe the sounds they hear.

8. Encourage children to “play” a piece of music together using their instruments.

This activity align with EYLF Outcome 4.1: Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination and reflexivity

• Some colorful strips of cloth.

• A song that evokes a sense of adventure and flight, would be better with Aboriginal songs.

Lesson steps:

1. After finishing the first activity, gather the children and ask: "Do you remember what creatures were in the parade I just saw?". When the answer is dragons, then introduce the second activity "Imagine we are strong dragons and soar into the sky!"

2. Play music and guide children through basic movements: "Dragon flying in the air" (encourage children to run around, spreading their arms like dragon wings), "Dragon winding through the clouds" (children writhe their bodies), "Dragon flying fast" (running fast), "Dragon flying slowly" (walking slowly).

3. Encourage children to use the strips of cloth as a dragon tail or dragon wings.

4. Invite children to freely express their own creative movements.

5. End the activity by asking the child to “land” and relax.

This activity align with the EYLF Outcome 3.2: Children become strong in their physical learning and wellbeing

Lesson Steps:

1. Gather the children in line and go out for an On Country Walk to the selected park nearby. While walking, introduce the children to native trees and their importance to Indigenous people and to us today.

2. Introduce the activity by asking “Do you remember in my royal parade experience the tree soldier waved to me?” "Do you see those trees? They also are soldiers. They are waving to us and whispering secret stories.".

3. Ask children to be quiet then observing and listening to the environment around.

4. Then encourage each child to play a dramatic game by asking them to imagine that the tree soldiers and we are new friends, then build a conversation or story with the tree. You might say: "If this tree soldier could talk, what stories would it tell?" Then invite the children to approach the tree, one by one or in pairs, and "talk" to the tree. You can suggest some questions for children to talk to the tree, such as: asking the tree "How old are you?", telling the tree something they like "I like your clothes".

5. Then, encourage children to share what they imagine the tree said back. By gather children again and ask: "What did the tree soldier say to you?" or "How did it feel to talk to the tree soldier?"

6. This activity can be further developed by having children draw a picture or act out a short story that the tree told them after returning to the classroom.

This activity align with the EYLF Outcome 2.4: Children become socially responsible and show respect for the environment

Dance Teaching Ideas. (n.d.). Creative Dance-Play for Early childhood. Danceteachingideas. https://danceteachingideas.com/creative-dance-movement-for-toddlers/

Gano, D., & Krull, S. (2020, July). Natural Sensory Learning. Communityplaythings. https://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/natural-sensory-learning

Raisingchildren.net.au the Australian parenting website. (n.d.). Imaginary friends. Rasingchildren.net.au. https://raisingchildren.net.au/preschoolers/behaviour/friends-siblings/imaginary-friends

TEDx Talk. (2015, November 13). The difference between hearing and listening | Pauline Oliveros | TEDxIndianapolis  [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/_QHfOuRrJB8?si=I3I0583mKIBZjwpJ

Wilson, R. (2007). Nature and Young Children: Encouraging Creative Play and Learning in Natural Environments. Routledge. https://vu.ereserve.vu.edu.au/app/manage/resources/access?item_id=193726&session_public_key=a335109d1abb4dd387b0110267931f26