Short Teaching and Documentation Panel by Andrew Polydorou

Experience One - Sound/Music: Sounds of Nature

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:26:21 UTC

Discuss with children the sounds we hear when we are outside in nature, e.g. wind, rain, thunder, birds, animals, cars, trains, and planes. Offer the children the choice of musical and percussive instruments, or to use their bodies and voice as instruments, to imaginatively recreate the sound they choose. The activity encourages children to accompany the educator’s narration of a short place-walk in nature, recreating sounds.

For example, [narration] I heard my footsteps as I walked through the forest (child makes footsteps sound), it began to rain (child makes rain sound), and the wind was howling (child makes wind sound), a plane flew across the sky (child makes plane sound), the rain stopped (child stops rain sound), I heard birds chirping (child makes bird sounds).

Experience One - Reflection

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:30:43 UTC

Children’s observations of sounds in nature included birds, dogs, wind, thunder, rain, trains, planes, police sirens, and trucks. When I offered children the option of instruments to use or their voices to recreate the sounds, the use of their voices was the popular choice. Many dogs were barking, birds tweeting, and planes soaring. One child used a shaker to create a train sound, another child used a tambourine to make rain sounds. Narrating the place-walk was challenging with children initially struggling with the concept, not waiting for cues, and making their sounds at the same time. Children were just having fun making music together. If we practiced this experience daily, children would improve their understanding of the experience, leading to a successful interplay of call and response with the narrative.

Experience Two – Movement/Dance: Move with Your Senses

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:38:48 UTC

Three cards have been created promoting the use of three senses; sight, hearing, and touch. Each card poses a question.

What are five things you can see?

What are five things you can hear?

What are five things you can touch?

The children choose a card and make five observations in an outdoor environment based on the sense listed on the card. Each child is then invited to use their body to express the movement of their observation. For example, I see a tree; how does a tree move? I hear a plane; how does a plane move? I can touch the sand; how does sand move?

The movements may be complex and involve full body expression or invoke complete stillness. The idea focuses on children’s individual expression and interpretation of the observation they have made.

Experience Two - Reflection

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:42:10 UTC

Children chose the sense of sight card. I was impressed with their creative response to this experience. Observations included trees, clouds, bikes, teachers, and chickens. Trees were motioned with arms as branches, swaying their bodies in the breeze. Clouds were motioned with arms up in the air, with fingertips twinkling like rain drops. Bikes were motioned with children holding imaginary handlebars and running around the yard making motor sounds. Teachers were imitated with verbal statements rather than movements, with children saying, “group time on the mat,” and “who would like some morning tea?” Children had fun with this experience, inspiring the idea of taking this concept indoors as well.

Experience Three - Drama: Trash Pandas

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:42:57 UTC

During a visit to the Creswick Forest, I found rubbish and litter strewn across the forest floor. An unfortunate lack of respect for nature, and a demonstration of how choices made by humans either help the environment or destroy it.

The Trash Pandas activity invites children to become protectors of nature, the superheroes who save nature from Trash Pandas who are destroying the planet. Children can spend 5-10 minutes combing the outdoor play space environment for rubbish, equipped with gloves and a bucket, and correctly disposing rubbish into the waste bin or recycling bin. Children are encouraged to engage with drama to highlight an important message, educating themselves and others to “take responsibility for your waste, put it in the right place.”

Experience Three - Reflection

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:52:53 UTC

Children enjoyed being superheroes saving the world from Trash Pandas, role modelling my actions as I participated in collecting rubbish with the group. Children made comments about the different coloured bins they have at home and helping their families take the bins out for the garbage truck. Some comments I heard were, “which bin does this go in?”, “why is there so much rubbish on the floor?”, “the yellow bin is for carboard at my house”, “we have to look after the earth because it will get sick.” This experience had the largest participation of the three experiences, as children were curious about what we were doing and genuinely wanted to help. I will include more related environmental practices based on children’s enthusiasm for this experience.

Rationale

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:55:04 UTC

The on-country visit in the Creswick Forest for assessment task two informed the basis for all three teaching experiences.

The Sound/Music experience was created to inspire children to think creatively about how musical instruments can be used to express ideas stemming from sounds in nature and to interpret the sounds though individual musical expression. A short story-telling exercise requires children to listen closely to the educator’s language, encouraging the children to respond with their chosen instrument in relation to sounds. The activity enhances the development of memory, social skills, language, hand-eye coordination, fine/gross motor skills, and cognition (Wendall, 2014).

The Movement/Dance experience invites children to listen deeply to outdoor natural environments using their senses of hearing, sight and touch. The children are encouraged to mentally process the information their senses tune into and creatively interpret/express this sensory information through movement. “The natural world offers an incredible wealth of sensory experiences and open-ended materials for motoric manipulation” (Wilson, 2007, P. 8).

The Drama experience encourages children to role play a real-life environmental issue that impacts the world. Children are invited to search outdoor spaces for rubbish and encouraged through role play to make connections to the negative impact that littering has on natural environments and the future of the planet. Promoting positive and informed waste disposal practices is enhancing children’s appreciation of the natural world, and developing an awareness of environmental issues, empowering children to make better choices and share knowledge with others in their community. “Fostering a positive environmental ethic at the early childhood level can serve as a critical step in developing an environmentally literate and concerned citizenry” (Wilson, 2007, p. 16).

Overall Reflection

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 06:56:26 UTC

My perspective of the learning languages of sound/music, movement/dance, and drama has evolved into a deepened understanding of the importance of tone, pitch, sound, music, movement, action, dance, dramatic expression, and storytelling as an effective means of communicating with children. These languages create a focal point to attract and invite the attention of children, providing a rich and vibrant method for absorbing information, with an extension beyond verbal spoken language. The atelier is equally important in providing educational value toward development outcomes of children, be it indoor or outdoor environments, using their senses to draw a connection to place. Encouraging children to be aware of their environment and listen deeply, promotes Indigenous perspectives, like Dadirri, the practice of “inner deep listening and quiet still awareness” (Ungunmerr, 2017), and acknowledges First Nations People’s strong history, knowledge, and relationship with Country. “Thinking with the concept of place-thought provides an opportunity to place Aboriginal ways of knowing in the centre of understanding about the places where we live” (Hamm, 2015, p. 64). We have an innate relationship with our environment, and through deep listening, respond to its learning. The environment reveals our identity, inspires imagination, promotes creativity, triggers emotion, tells stories, gives birth to unexpected experiences, and nurtures cognitive and physical development. “An environment is a living, changing system. More than the physical space, it includes the way time is structured and the roles we are expected to play. It conditions how we feel, think and behave, and it dramatically affects the quality of our lives” (Edwards et al., 2013, p. 332).

References

andrewnpolydorou — 2024-09-14 07:01:03 UTC

Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (2013). The hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation. Blooms Publishing USA. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/detail.action?docID=820317#

Hamm, C. (2015). Walking with Place: Storying Reconciliation Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education. Canadian Children Journal of the Canadian Association for Young Children, 40(2), 57-67. https://research.ebsco.com/c/6kr4lr/viewer/pdf/73npiks3mz

Ungunmerr, M.-R. (2017, November 29). Dadirri [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tow2tR_ezL8

Wendall, H. (2014). A Reggio Inspired Music Atelier: Opening the Door Between Visual Arts and Music. 42(4), 287-294. https://doi: 10.1007/s10643-013-0610-9

Wilson, R. (2007). Nature and Young Children: Encouraging Creative Play and Learning in Natural Environments. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203940723