·       the age group of the learners: 3-5 years

·       the purpose of the learning experience: children to understand the growth and life cycle of trees through dance

·       materials: none 

I was inspired by this photo in Parallaxis of the tree to draw on the topics of plant life cycles for young children. My suggested activity is to look at the theme of plants. The dance would be led by the educator guiding a group of early childhood children to explore and develop the knowledge and ideas about the life cycle of a tree whilst refining their movement skills. 

Educators could play a soft musical instrument in the background and first show that all trees start off as a seed, by placing themselves in the fetal position, the children are to imitate. Following the life cycle, the educator would represent themselves as a sapling and could be sitting on the ground with their legs crossed. The next step of the life cycle is the growth of a small tree, educators are encouraged to kneel on their knees, representing the height of a developing tree. With sufficient water, nutrients and sunlight, a big mature tree would reap, where educators would stand on both legs, swaying their arms as if they were big branches. Through this interactive activity, young children would be introduced to the life cycle of plants where ‘the teachers [are] participating in the production of new knowledge’ while a child’s learning is being transformed into something physical (Edwards, Gandini & Forman 2011, p. 228’). This activity could be furthered by beginning to plant their own seeds in the classroom, providing children with real time examples of the developmental stages of a plant.