Australia:

Situation:
Throughout my experience I implemented a range of play-based, Montessori and Nature
Based teaching strategies to plan and established a sequence of lessons to teach all about
Australia. A resource that was most valuable to the class was our map of Australia. This map
was imbedded into all areas of the curriculum from Journal writing, math’s, Science, HASS
and afternoon craft. Each week I prepared a sequence of lessons and tried to link all areas to
our Book of the week which linked to our Australia Map. You can see this planning in the
document below.

Action:

Each week we explored a theme that linked with Australia. Some of the themes we explored
included; Australian animals, Australian Flora, Australian Flags, Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander cultures and practices, Australian states and The Australian Football League.

For our Australian Animals week, each morning during our mat sessions we would list 5
finger facts about the Australian animal of the day and watch a video based on that
particular animal. During Journal writing we would write a topic that linked with the theme
such as; ‘Some things I know about Australian Animals’ or ‘My favorite Australian Animal is’.
During these lessons I would provide individual challenges to the students by verbally saying
“Sean, your challenge for doing is to remember your finger spacing”. After each lesson we I
would underline the incorrect words and provide the correct spelling. I would provide star
for student who attempted and completed their challenges. When checking the child’s
work, I would tick the word if the child sounded out the word correctly however the spelling
may have been incorrect. I reinforced that spelling was not the most important concept, but
sounding out the words was.

For the Math’s session we further explored our theme of Australia by embedding Australian
animals into the rotations. It was difficult to make every single rotation themed, so I would
aim to theme one or two rotations. For example, when we completed our Ordinal numbers
rotations one of the rotations involved; an animal race where the children would roll a dice
and take on the role of an Australian animal. They would count and move their place on a
grid board and after each turn would be encouraged to say “The wombat is coming first, the
kangaroo is coming second, the emu is coming third” and so on.
During our HASS and Science lessons the themes fit in really well. For HASS we would read a
story in front of our giant Australia board. For the story ‘All the way to WA’ I printed out a
laminated Kombi van and when we read about each state in the book I would put a picture
of the landmark and name of the state onto the board. The children enjoyed this visual. At
the end of the term we ended up filling the board up with:

• Names of the States and Capitals of Australia

• Australian Animals for each state
• Australian Flag for each state
• Australian Famous landmarks for each state
• Australian Floral Emblems
• Australian AFL teams

To further develop the child’s skills during the afternoon activities I would print and
laminate a Montessori Material which is known as Three part cards. These three part cards
help to reinforce a specific idea. Each idea and theme we explored was put on the shelf.
I presented the materials to each student that was interested. In the Montessori approach
they present materials using a Three period lesson which involves:

• This is
• Show me
• What is

For example, for the Australian animals three part cards I would sit down with the child and
say what each Australian animal is, “This is a wombat” then I would say “Show me the
wombat” and then I would say and point to the wombat “What is this?”. There are different
variations to these lessons. You can also make them entirely play based and have the child
free play with the materials. I decided to implement them into the sensorial tray in between
oats. They would put their hands in and do lucky dips with the laminated cards. There is also
a matching game where all of the materials are face down and the child has to try and
remember and match the cards.

During our afternoon activities I would link most of the activities to the theme. We had our
HASS shelves, Play corner, 3 or 4 activities and a reading corner. These would be completely
free choice. The activities during our Australian animal’s week involved crafting the
Australian animal of the day, for example; Koala craft. This would be where the EA would sit
and help the children. Other activities would be entirely individual. During Australian
animal’s week we had; label the parts of the animals, Australian minis, Sensory tray and our
animal craft available.
 Outcome:
Through designing a sequence of lessons I was able to explore the theme of Australia and
implement it into all areas of the curriculum. I chose this theme as it linked to the child’s
sense of belonging and place which links to the EYLF; Being, belonging, becoming. The main
purpose of linking to the theme was to engage the children’s interests in a fun, play- based
way. I completed a summative assessment where the children drew all of the things they
learnt about Australia and was extremely impressed with how much knowledge the children
retained. The main outcome involved a high level of student engagement, a structure to
plan the term based on a theme and linking to the child’s sense of place.