Water, M. (2011, May 17). The Black Swan. Www.youtube.com. https://youtu.be/UZMYGtFfHaE?si=F_2WepNEcBgT7pDg

 

 

Wilson, R. (2018). Nature and Young Children: Encouraging Creative Play and Learning in Natural Environments. Third Edition. Routledge, London.

During my recent country walk to the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria-Melbourne Gardens, I was amazed by the awe wonders and sensations of natural environment in this beautiful Melbourne Gardens can offer. There are devise living plants and full of incredible birdlife, it is blessed to see them and hear their calls. Immersing myself in the gardens, I can feel the magical power of nature, which makes me feel soothing, peaceful and comfortable.

Then I was attracted by the beautiful and elegant black swan when I saw it gracefully swimming in the Ornamental Lake. It is the gift of the nature, and the sense of wonder. I had wondered why it is a black swan, not a white swan, when I came close to video it. Although it is as beautiful as a white swan, it is different from my current knowledge. I wished there would be a description sign or history about this swan nearby. But when I looked around, it is only nature. Therefore, I did some research and found out some dreamwork story about the black swan (Water, 2011). I was delighted after reading it. Suddenly when I looked at the black swan again, the feeling about it is all changed, it has deepened my understanding with the Aboriginal knowledge perspective. It resonates with Hamm’s place-thought pedagogy (2015). She emphasized to know and understand of the Aboriginal land, we had to tuned in this place, engage in this place, see everything around it, and pay attention to the stories about it, think with the Aboriginal history and culture, which helps us having a deep connected feelings and understandings about the place which has existed for thousands of years. I also agree that Watts’ idea about creation stories, which are not myths or allegories, like the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories, but they are involved with the interconnections between humans and the more than human in historical way. The land is very important in the lives of the Aboriginal people, they are part of land and the nonhumans that make up the land too. We inhabit in postcolonial Australia; we need communicate with the land and engage with the land with care and interact with the nonhumans as well.  I am thinking how I can help children communicate and connect with the land and engage with land and the plants and animals; And I am also reflecting how I inform the Aboriginal knowledge in the Early childhood Education in the simple and easy way. 

After learning through this unit, it reinforces my philosophy of offering children play-based learning, an ample freedom of playing and exploring, experiencing in the natural environment, especially embedding the Aboriginal culture and knowledge into my daily practice with dreamtime storytelling, aboriginal music and movement and creating environments for fostering the drama for children to discover and experience. 

In this creative response about the country walk, I pretended myself as the black swan to tell the story about how the white swan became the first black swan in the Aboriginal culture. I felt sharing dreamtime stories with children is the most valuable, creative, fun and easiest way to help children young understand with acknowledge and learning of the Aboriginal culture and knowledge. In addition, children can get deep understanding through listening and engaged in activities, like dancing to the aboriginal music, exploring aboriginal music instruments, set up a bushtucker garden in the childcare center.

Furthermore, as an early childhood educator, I believe that children learn through play, which cannot be taught, instead of that, children need experiences of discovering their social, cultural and physical environments through play to learn the world around them and develop the sense of competence. According to Wilson (2018), we learnt that creative play helps children learn a lot of about themselves, such as their bodies, their abilities, their emotions and their relations with others. Play is motivating for children, and they want to get involved in it. Regarding to the concept of biophilia (Wilson, 2018) suggestion, young children playing in the natural environments matching their innate need and they are fascinating about the natural environment, like they want to reach to the flowers and pick them up. It is gift of the nature providing and creating the sense of wonder for human beings including the young children.

Also, I strongly agree with Wilson’s statement about children experiencing in natural outdoor environments (Wilson, 2018), it offers the stimulating environment with rich sensory experiences and open-ended materials which fosters not only the children’s health, ability to concentrate and emotional bonding with natural world, but offering the valuable opportunities for developing children’s adaptive skills, cognitive development, communication skills, motor skills and socioemotional skills. Also, it was told that children likely to engage in creative play in the natural area. Therefore, to facilitate the children having more opportunities to interact with natural environment, it is a good idea to include excursions to the local parks in the curriculum. Organizing regular excursions to the nearby local parks, children can experience different natural environments, gain the sense of the world around them, expanding children’s horizons.

To reflect on this, I think our center is really doing the great job. We have excursions in our program, children have opportunity to experience different natural environments, such as, local parks and gardens, community walk. We also have diverse incursions. Last week, we had Farm Animals Incursion, children were so excited to interact with these farm animals, it was first time for some children to interact with animals. At the beginning, some of children were so scared and started to cry, but with our educators’ help, we held them or stayed close to them, they slowly relaxed and started to use the brush to comb the sheep, pat bunnies and feed chickens, ducks and geese. It was a great learning experiences for our children. We also have garden patches. Children helped up planting seeds in the garden two weeks ago, and out garden peas stated to grow with green sprouts, we had children watering the garden every day, children really engaged in this garden experience. It is in the curriculum of my room.