“When children learn from their natural world, they gain empathy and the ability to nurture living things. As they discover the wonders of nature, they gain a reverence for life.”

Not a day goes by at Curiosity where our children are not mesmerised by something in nature. Being drawn into nature opens up opportunities for children to be more engaged in creative forms of play than anything that we as Educators can offer in manufactured environments.

This has certainly become very apparent to our Staff Team this week as we have continued to explore and celebrate Reconciliation Week. At Curiosity, we are growing in our understanding of the traditional owners of the land in which we reside, the Kaurna people and we wish to uphold them with honour for sharing this special place with us.

Our response as an ELC has been to offer our children authentic experiences which ensure that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and cultures is not something that is just celebrated once a year but with honesty and respect throughout the entire year.

This week our 4 year old friends have been exploring the connection that Aboriginal people have to animals and in particular through Dreaming Stories. The Dreaming Story of ‘Banjora & Uwappa and the Muhdurrahs’ by Aunty Naiura, has offered our children a chance to think about connections of relationships that animals have with one another. In this Dreaming Story, Banjora (koala) needs protection from the hunters, when Uwappa (spider) comes and spins a web to hide him. This story of kindness found its way into our children’s play as they explored our Rock Garden. Using the loose parts found in nature, the children engaged in collaborative work to construct the parts of this story. The ‘jetty’ was just the right place for the web to be brought to life. With great discussion and consultation amongst our friends, an intricate display of lines began to form the web. Once they stepped back, the children realised that the characters of the story were missing. This then began phase 2 where the koala and spider were created to make the Dreaming Story complete.

How special it is to see our children make connections with their learning and to transfer it within their play. As resources were considered and placed to form the children’s thinking, it was evident to see the care given to ensuring that just the right rock of piece of bark was needed to be placed where to make the work complete.

“When children learn from their natural world, they gain empathy and the ability to nurture living things. As they discover the wonders of nature, they gain a reverence for life.”

Exploring the loose parts in our garden.

Friends working together to skilfully place the varied rocks within the ‘web’.

The rocks in our garden give our children the opportunity to explore and compare distinguishing differences and similarities within nature.

Connecting our Dreaming Story of ‘Banjora & Uwappa’ into the heart of nature play. The intricate web the spider spun to protect the baby koala.

The Koala who was rescued. Loose Parts – bark, stones and leaves.

The Spider who spun the web of rescue. Loose Parts – bark, reeds and leaves.

(© 2015 - Loose Parts Inspiring Play in Young Children by Lisa Daly and Miriam Beloglovsky. © 2014 – My First Dreamtime Tales of My Grandmother’s Dreamtime by Naiura)

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