NAIDOC Week is a special time where we honour and celebrate the accomplishments of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. 

Last week, the children at Punchbowl World of Learning extended on their knowledge of NAIDOC week through a number of fun learning experiences. 

Making an Aboriginal Flag 

The children started off by painting their hands with a yellow circle in the middle, a black section around it, and a red section around it. As Miss Leah was painting their hands she asked them if they remembered from our previous discussion what red, black and yellow represented to the Aboriginal people.

Most of the Dolphins were able to respond with the land, people, and the sun respectively. The Dolphins then used an A4 canvas on which they put their hands together. This was another representation of many people, one land.

 

Dreamtime Stories & Exploration 

The learnings continued with the educators reading the children Dreamtime stories. One of the stories they read were, ‘The Echidna and the Shade Tree.” From this, the children suggested creating the echidna that featured in it. 

They first went outside to collect sticks in order to make their own echidnas. Next, they used their hand-eye coordination and sensory skills to form a ball-like shape from clay. Finally, they placed sticks into to their clay to represent the spikes on an echidnas body.

 

Then using some feathers we created birds just like those in the dream time story ‘How the Birds Got their Colours’. Amongst themselves, the children acted out small parts of the story interacting verbally with each other. 

We also used our cognitive skills to match Aboriginal Symbols and have come to recognise most of them. 

We can’t wait to continue our learning of Aboriginal culture throughout the year!