Robyn: Ok? Ok, come on, let’s keep walking. Look Phillip! What’s that?
Child 1: What’s that?
Robyn: I don’t know what that is!
Child 1: Hello there!
Kerryn: Well thanks for having a yarn today, Robin, about all the beautiful things, pedagogy, and the practice that happens in your learning space, the emu room, and with the children here at Gundoo. Just thought we'd have a look at this beautiful footage and reflect together on some of that beautiful work to share further.
Robyn: So as you can see here, we're inside of the room. We set up the table like this because the children found interest in the animals. They really like to play with them everywhere they went. They would take them outside or they would play with them in the room. We extended this learning experience by putting up little pictures of the animals on the white board and from thereon we took the learning experiences also outside by also setting up outside the outdoor environment to also stimulate them ...
Kerryn: It's like the learning extends from the indoor environment to the outdoor and really follow the children's interests.
Robyn: We would talk about going on a nature walk, and the children loved the nature walk. So as you can see here, now we're going outside. No, do you want to hold it? There you go. What can you see in there? Ok, you’re gonna fly!
Speaker 1: Oh it’s gone! Oh is that…?
Robyn: Come on! Extending on our little learning journey here with the animals and the outdoor, we decided to also set up areas with the planks, the A-frames, things to just give them a bit of a physical challenge as well, and still keeping that imagination with them, you know, like pretending that we're climbing up and we’re climbing down and we’re walking through and we’ve gotta be careful! There’s water there on the ground and…
Kerryn: You've set up the environment, you design it to support daily what you're learning and your investigations with children.
Robyn: Look Phillip! So, we also gave the children some of the magnifying glasses.
Kerryn: Yes, I was just seeing here where you're investigating, looks like, what animals are outside.
Robyn: What can we find outside? We would go around the trees, look around the trees. The children also loved ants and insects, creepy-crawly things. So, we went outside looking around, investigating. Hey? What is it? What can you see?
They love those magnifying glasses too.
Kerryn: And having these resources readily available for them to have outside, inside, and I notice there was paints over in the other space over here. So, you're offering inviting spaces for children to explore.
Child 2: Look over here! Over here!
Robyn: There are, we’re coming towards the jungle! This is where it crocodile are, through the jungle! So here we come towards our little jungle, forest sort of walk and we set about hanging some stuff there. So, we got the kids to look up in the trees, and sometimes we would ask them, you know, you try and get them to use their imaginations. “Where's those monkeys?” things like this. The children would respond to it and say, "There it is, it's up there!" Look, everyone’s here, look! Quick, can you see any monkeys in the tree? Hey?
Child 3: No.
Child 4: Ah! Up there!
Kerryn: You can see him pointing, “There it is”.
Robyn: Yeah.
Kerryn: Looking for some animal living in the tree.
Robyn: They’re good at using their imagination as well.
Kerryn: Mm.
Robyn: Where?
Child 4: Up there!
Speaker 1: Oh that’s a big one!
Robyn: Oh there he is. There’s one up there!
Child 5: Yeah I can’t see it!
Child 6: Monkey, look!
Robyn: Sometimes they just look up there to see the birds up there. If there's any magpies or any sort of crows. Sometimes we get parrots up in our trees here so in the afternoons and around this time.
Kerryn: Children working together, it's like you have your own community of learners there, Robyn.
Robyn: Yeah! Yeah they’re all happy to be around.
Child 6: A bird! It’s a bird! There he is! There he is!
Robyn: Come on. Look up at the bird. He’s up in the tree. So a lot of this is just making the children think. Think where they are, what they are, where they live.
Kerryn: Just nurturing their imaginations too.
Robyn: Yeah, yeah. Ok, we’re safe!
Kerryn: I just saw you, Robin, in that footage there with the aboriginal flag in your hand. So you fly the flags out in your area?
Robyn: Yeah we fly them out the back here in the area here because I believe that it's important to acknowledge who we are, what ground we're standing on as well, be proud because I like to instil that into the children about who they are. So, I believe that culture is very important. Gooja, please. Just go with the flow, do you know whatever the children want to do. You set it up, and if that doesn't work, then you just go with whatever the children want, you know? Just go with them. They'll take you on the journey I think too.
Kerryn: Yes.
Robyn: Rather than us taking them. I think we can learn a lot from them too. Get set, go!