As part of our Indigenous learning program, Gan Seorah has welcomed travelling mascot, Dinnawan the Emu. Designed to build a connection between early learning centres and services around Australia, the Koori Curriculum provides eight plush toy Australian Animal Mascots to volunteer centres. Our visitor is here to learn about the land on which we learn and play, and we are then asked to share our learning through filling in a scrapbook that documents Dinnawan’s adventures. This has been a wonderful opportunity to explore our large map of Australia, identifying where we live on Wurundjeri and Boonwurrong land, as well as tracking Dinnawan’s journey through Victoria, NSW and the ACT so far.

To extend the children’s learning about emus, we researched on the big screen, watching videos of emus in the wild, learning facts about emus and even watching some First Nations people performing their Emu dance. The children have been fascinated by this learning, creating Dinnawan paintings and incorporating him into every aspect of our day. His popularity provided the perfect platform to explore new social skills, such as learning to negotiate, share and take turns. Dinnawan has also been of great comfort to those that have needed extra cuddles or distractions when first arriving at Kinder. We look forward to more learning next week, before we send him off on his next adventure.

Laura Pearce
Kindergarten Educational Leader