🌿 Echoes of Country: Children’s Stories in Sound, Movement, and Drama. by Hannie Huynh

1. Title & Summary of Planned Experiences

huynhngochann2005 — 2025-09-13 09:43:22 UTC

This panel captures three short arts-informed practices- Music, Movement, and Drama, inspired by my artefact of Assessment 2 (Whispers of My Backyard). My earlier creative response taught me to learn to slow down, listen, and understand how nature speaks through wind, birds, and shifting light. From this point, I developed three experiences where children similarly listen, move, and tell through Country.

Exploring:

Music: "Backyard Orchestra" constructed from natural and found materials.

Movement: Embodying trees, birds, and water through improvised dance.

Drama: Creating a joint performance that animates the backyard.

These sessions all encourage children to express themselves through temporal arts as they learn to interact respectfully with place.

2. Rationale

huynhngochann2005 — 2025-09-13 09:45:53 UTC

Through my Assessment 2 activity, I realised that being in my backyard was not just an observation but also an entanglement. Bird sounds and rustling of leaves were not separate from me- they affected how I felt, moved, and represented the world around me. This experience of being in a state of entanglement guided the design of my activity.

3.1: [Activity 1] Music (Exploring through nature sounds making)

huynhngochann2005 — 2025-09-13 09:49:22 UTC

Materials: found objects- sticks, stones, leaves; wind/ birds/ leaves could be the background of the orchestra.

Steps:

Gather natural materials: pebbles (small/large), sticks, dry leaves.
Begin with a "listening moment" outdoors/ listen to birdsong and wind.
Explore sounds in isolation: tap sticks against rocks, rub leaves, knock pebbles.
Layer sounds together to create an overall "nature orchestra."
Conclude by listening silently to the world's own soundscape.

3.2: [Activity 2] Movement (Dance with Net Fabric)

huynhngochann2005 — 2025-09-13 10:07:09 UTC

Materials

Large lightweight net/fabric piece
Open space (indoor or outdoor)
Optional: music or natural soundscape playback

Lesson Steps:

Provide a large piece of light net fabric/ or light colourful fabrics.
Begin with a simple model: hold the fabric, wave it a little, and let it float.
Run with the fabric, noticing how it flows like water or wind.
Invite participants (or children in practice) to improvise movement (flying, swirling, flowing).
Conclude by having participants "freeze" in a last position that is some part of Country (tree, wave, bird).

3.3: [Activity 3] Drama (Pretend Play in Nature)

huynhngochann2005 — 2025-09-13 10:22:24 UTC

Materials

Outdoor natural play space (tree, rocks, open area)
Simple props (sticks, scarves, cloth)

Lesson Steps

Choose a natural play space (underneath a tree/ climbing trees under control).
Provide simple props such as sticks or scarves.
Pose a prompt question: "What animals or people might live here?"
Role-play encouragement: being a bird, an explorer, or the tree itself.
Add story lines (birds searching for food, saving a friend, hiding from others…)
Act or tell a short story together.

4. Overall reflection

huynhngochann2005 — 2025-09-13 10:24:38 UTC

Through these three activities, my perspective of music, movement, and drama in early childhood has shifted from "add-on" creative activities to core means of knowing and being. My reflection in Assessment 2 was largely descriptive, with a focus on sensory detail. In this assessment, I have learned more deeply the ways in which temporal arts entail entanglement with place and how they build pedagogy.

From the music activity, I learned that natural sound creation is not simplistic and limited, but instead a developing conversation between self and Country. In movement, I sensed how material and air co-created meaning, illustrating that dance is not only physical, but ecological. Drama highlighted the manner in which nature can be a character in narrative, confirming the inseparable connection of children, materials, and Country.

This growth has served to locate the arts in early childhood as both aesthetic and philosophical. They constitute children's listening, moving, and imagining capacities, such that they are able to be entangled with others and with the earth. As a teacher, I now see my work as setting up the conditions for these entanglements to occur, not to prefigure ends. In the future, I intend to infuse Indigenous views of Country as relational and active into the temporal arts that I present, so that children can construct responsive identities, stories, and relationships to place.

Reference list:

huynhngochann2005 — 2025-09-13 10:27:13 UTC

Community Playthings. (2014). The importance of pretend play in natural settings. Community Playthings. https://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/the-importance-of-pretend-play-in-natural-settings

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. (2009). Belonging, being & becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia. Commonwealth of Australia. https://www.dese.gov.au/early-years-learning-framework

Gilbert, A. G. (2013). Creative dance for all ages (2nd ed.). Human Kinetics.

Isenberg, J. P., & Jalongo, M. R. (2014). Creative expression and play in the early childhood curriculum (6th ed.). Pearson.

Wilson, R. (2007). Children, creative play, and the natural environment. In R. Wilson (Ed.), Nature and young children: Encouraging creative play and learning in natural environments (pp. 1–18). Routledge.

Wright, S. (2012). Children, meaning-making and the arts (2nd ed.). Pearson.