A snapshot of our NAIDOC Week celebrations

Heal Country! A week of highlighting the need to recognise, protect and maintain all aspects of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and heritage. Discovery is committed to embedding Aboriginal history and culture in our everyday educational programs, and NAIDOC Week gives us the opportunity to celebrate this, participate in community events and focus on the ancient, and rich culture and heritage of our first peoples.

Here is a summary of some the experiences we had during the week at a few of our services...

Our Ravenswood centre joined with the Ravenswood Child and Family Centre and the Ravenswood Community Centre to celebrate NAIDOC week together - children joined in a variety of activities which included cooking damper, bark painting, ocre hand prints, flag making, and engaging with native animal small world play. The children showed that they are developing an understanding of Aboriginal culture and showed confidence in this rich community engagement.

The Launceston Early Learning Centre is very proud to continue its journey in embedding Aboriginal culture and perspectives into their daily program and they were inspired by the theme of NAIDOC Week to create and prepare a variety of experiences for the children to explore - but started the day with an important and inclusive family breakfast in the morning!

Kate, Melissa and Adele from Alexander Beetle House were given a beautiful handmade gift from one of their families - Marilyn gifted handmade jewelry made from bull kelp and river weed, wishing our all the educators a Happy NAIDOC Week.

The children from our Sacred Heart Early Learning Centre went on an excursion to the flag raising at piyura kitina, engaging with the community to celebrate the journey they have been on, embedding Aboriginal prospective into their learning cycle as well as engaging with the community and connecting with the land. This was such a joyful, engaging and important experience and felt that it helped to expand their knowledge of the indigenous perspective. Sacred Heart Early Learning Centre, has focused on a holistic approach when learning about Aboriginality, having a strong focus on the palawa peoples in lutruwita as well as an appreciation and understanding of different mobs across Australia through music, storytelling, art, connections to land and dramatic play.

Illara Pre School had a wonderful time during NAIDOC Week. Educators took the children to the library to see if we could find any books on bush tucker. They were lucky enough to find a nice librarian who helped them find lots of books that included plants and trees that we could eat from, but after returning to the centre and searching the yard they could find none of these in their environment, so they have decided to plant some themselves!

The children researched aspects of Aboriginal culture and learnt about the didgeridoo and clapping sticks musical instruments, exploring the drawings and recreating symbols in the classroom as well as outside in the sand and mud. They also spoke about our native animals and their habitat, which we then extended into them making their own habitat for the animals. The children gathered all sorts of things from the garden and our inside resources and then created an amazing enclosure that any animal would be proud to live in. They used, branches, twigs, rocks, pinecones, sand, water, bark and even gumnuts which they then made a little campfire and settlement for the animals.

Some children during the week created their own dreamtime stories after listening to some stories in group time, they painted their own stories and thoughts. This then led to different types of paintings that they wanted to explore including ochre, handprints and charcoal.