Learning Across the ELC

Storytelling in Banksia Gold

As part of Banksia Gold’s ‘We are all storytellers’ Inquiry, we have been recreating some of Pamela Allen’s stories in our play. For ‘Alexander’s Outing’ Ms Lauder dropped a toy duck down a pipe in the sand pit and the children problem solved using their knowledge of the story to float the duck up to the top of the pipe. There were lots of quacking sounds just like in the speech bubbles of the story as the children continued to repeat the experience in their play. With ‘Who Sank The Boat’ we decided to test the children’s theory that the mouse sank the boat, by further exploring the concept of balance in our slack line risk assessment. We identified the story’s characters (using Auslan signs and our understanding of ordinals) and children volunteered to be a cow, donkey, pig, sheep and mouse. One by one children climbed up onto the slack line and we talked about how it was becoming more and more wobbly and getting lower, just like the boat in the story. It was a great way to discover that the safest way to use the slack line is to have one person on it at a time and that jumping around like a mouse makes it unsafe.

Alexanders Outing

Charlie: “We can use the hose as the fountain”

Millie: “Fill the bucket up…. or we can use a spade”

Millie: “The duck is getting up”

Max: “There’s just mud”

Eevee: “Just a little bit of water”

Madeline O: “Can I have a look at the duck?”

Jono: “The water is moving up”

Charlie: “Is the duck coming up?”

Rose: “It getting higher”

Isaac: “I can see it”

Hannah: “Can I see what happened?”

Myles: “I see it, I see it”

Eevee: “The duck comeded out now”

Who Sank The Boat - Slack Line

Who was first?

Max: “I’m doing the cow“ (communicating the cow sign)

Who came next, 2nd?

Elle: “The donkey“ (communicating the donkey sign)

Who was next 3rd?

All: “The pig“ (Christina communicating the pig sign)

Who was 4th, the next one?

Max: “It’s really wobbly“ 

All: “The sheep“ (Jono communicating the sheep sign)

Who was next?

All: “The mouse“

Max:  “I want to get off“ (Max the Cow got down)

Christina: “It’s not safe“  (Elle the Donkey gets down)

Allegra: “A bit safer“ (Christina the Pig gets down)

Jono: “It’s not so wobbly now“ (Jono the Sheep down got down)

Only Allegra the mouse is left

“Is it wobbly with just the mouse?“ 

All: “No“ 

Allegra: “Just one person on“ 

Ms Ollie Lauder

ELC Teacher