Bena: Give her the bowl!
Kerryn: So, Bina today we're just having a look at some beautiful footage of you and the babies in your outdoor environment, yeah?
Bena: Yup.
Kerryn: This is outside your room with the babies here at Gundoo?
Bena: You gonna help me hide the big ball? Yeah, I try to encourage a lot of choices that the babies can make themselves. They have rights to pick and choose what they want to do. So, I try and do that and give them choices because everybody's different. They like different things.
Kerryn: Beautiful.
Bena: We just encourage and respect their choice of where they want to play with and where they want to play with it. Put it in the cup now. Put it in there. Yay!
Kerryn: So, your materials seem to be relevant to children. These wooden bowls and the beautiful scoops, they're real scoops.
Bena: I try to go for the natural stuff because I'm trying to make the environment look as natural.
Kerryn: Beautiful, a real connection to home and learning and sustainable environment.
Bena: Sustainable, yup. Where’s the ball Kupri? (gasp) Put the dirt on it. You want to put the dirt on it? You’re gonna hide it. You can see now, they’re learning in here now about the balls. They’re learning the size difference through language as well as playing with the balls.
Kerryn: Yes.
Bena: See we've got the small ball and I talk about the colours and the size, the texture of the balls. So that's all maths.
Kerryn: Maths, science, measurement, weight.
Bena: But playing the games with them is, don't just cover the one area. It covers the cognitive thinking, language. I talk a lot to the children, to the babies just to try and encourage language.
(gasp) Quickly hide it from Brooky. Brooky’s gonna get it now, look. Where’s the ball Brooky?
That’s, they’re taking the language in and they’re finding concept and meaning for it.
Kerryn: Sharing literacy. Community language also.
Bena: Language, yes. (singing) …Little star, how I wonder what you are..
Kerrny: You were singing beautiful Twinkle Twinkle there and before singing another song, Incy Wincey so being able to be spontaneous with your routine and again building on that literacy for children.
Bena: Yeah, it's also their interest. They love Twinkle Twinkle Little Star so now that I want to sing it and it's their favourite and Incy Wincey Spider that's a new one but we sing that songs when it rains as well…
Kerryn: And talk about what’s real and what’s in our environment and country.
Bena: Also, yeah. Yay!
Kerryn: And the way you design the environment and the way you support the children, your pedagogy of practice here, obviously enables that solitary play. Someone's in a basket there on his own.
Bena: Just to support whatever the child is ready for. It's encouraging. I think it's just as important for the child to have some me time for themselves just as much as it is to have group time. I think it gives the children time to reflect and observe and see just as much as whereas our educators do.
Kerryn: Mm. We are not isolating babies from each other but encouraging them to interact with each other seems a very strong part of the practice in your room.
Bena: We mainly try and connect children to all things that's going on in our community because at the end of the day it don't take one person to raise a child. It takes a community and that's what we are. That's what we try and enforce, not just in the centre here but in our community.