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The Very Early Years

Context
Areas of Integration - Outcomes Being Addressed
Learning Sequences: - audio files: audio icon |audio icon
References

 

Learning Sequence

  1. What evidence do we have to show that Aboriginal people have lived on this land for the past 50 000 years?
  2. What did Australia look like 50 000 years ago?
  3. What was life like for the Eora people before 1788?

1. What evidence do we have to show that Aboriginal people have lived on this land for at least the past 50 000 years?

Outcomes: TS2.2, RS2.5

Resources: #7 Audio (see below), #8 What Am I?
 

Resource # 7
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.mp3 ENGLISH READING MP3 568k
download time : 56k modem : 1 min 23 secs
Duration = 3 min 14 secs

 

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  • Brainstorm how we learn about the past.

  • Teachers find and display pictures of different types of evidence of Aboriginal past eg a midden, artefacts, engravings etc. Some pictures are available from Resource Kit Whose place is it anyway?

  • Listening task: teacher clarifies vocabulary before students listen to the text – archaeological evidence, artefacts, middens, rock engravings – from audio #7.
    Find out about carbon dating at
    www.howstuffworks.com/carbon-14.htm

  • Students listen to audio text #7 about evidence of Australia’s past. Students list main types of evidence of Aboriginal culture being established in Australia. Create as a retrieval chart.

  • Communicative Task 4: Play ‘What am I?’ #8 Distribute evidence cards and answer cards to each child. Children match the evidence with the description. (assessment task)

  • Teachers may wish to organise excursions to visit and view Aboriginal engraving sites through National Parks and Wildlife or Aboriginal Community contacts.

2. What did Australia look like 50 000 years ago?

Outcomes: RS2.5, TS2.1, VAS2.1, VAS2.2, ENS2.5, MS2.3, DRAS2.3

Resources: #7 Audio, #8 What Am I?

  • Read the text The Peopling of Australia, a picture book by Percy Trezise (1988). This book illustrates this period of time.

  • Use the events in the book to sequence information in chronological order using an ordinal timeline. Students can illustrate a particular period in time from the text using pastels and background with edicol dyes. Hang drawings sequentially. Children work in pairs to create a timeline (assessment task)

  • Dispersal of Gondwanaland. From
    earth.leeds.ac.uk/~greg/Gond.html
    Teacher explains that Australia had been joined to a larger land mass called Gondwanaland. Copy picture for students to observe and discuss. #9 Optional: cut up a world map. Can you fit the continents together?

  • Mathematics Task: water level. The following activity could be used to demonstrate what happens as the Earth warms up after an Ice Age (global warming). Students partly fill a glass with water and mark the level with a rubber band or a felt pen. Add an ice cube and, when it has melted, mark the new level with another elastic band or felt pen. Discuss what happened and why. Discuss how this experiment relates to global warming. Explain to students that during an Ice Age ocean levels drop as more water is locked up in icecaps, thus exposing more land and creating land bridges. http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages

  • http://www.hartwick.edu/geology/work/VFT-so-far/ glaciers/glacier1.html
    #10 A Dreaming story about this event could be read and performed. Gang-Man-Gang, retold by Heather Argerakis and Peter Houweling, tells of how the people came to the land.

  • Make puppets using recycling material. Present script as a performance.

3. What was life like for the Eora people before 1788?

Outcomes: VAS2.3, RS2.6, TS2.2

Resources: #11 Eora lifestyle, #6 Joseph Lycett album, #12 and #13 Eora Vocabulary and grid, #14 Text: The Eora People

  • Make OHT #11 which is a grid of different aspects of Eora lifestyle. Brainstorm what the students know about each topic.

  • Using drawings by Joseph Lycett #6 to investigate what life was like for Aboriginal people. Students write descriptions of each watercolour or etching. Teacher gives students background information about Joseph Lycett.

    www.ballarat.edu.au/academic/arts/bltag/lycett1.htm

    www.australianliterature.org/articles.html

    www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/birds/panel1b.html

  • This task is designed to build necessary vocabulary for when students read the text called The Eora #14. Students match word to definition and record which topic they would find each word under, on a copy of #12 and #13. For example burly ‘food thrown in water to attract fish’ – this information may be found under the topic ‘fishing’.

  • Distribute copies of the text. Teacher models skim reading to find keywords relating to the topics, eg ask children to locate and highlight the paragraph(s) where they find information about shelters. Encourage a variety of strategies when skim reading, eg identifying types of words (nouns, verbs etc) and specific vocabulary relating to the topic. Repeat the same process for each topic.

  • Jigsaw activity: In groups of 8, each child is given a different topic to research and write information in note form to record on grid #13. Students then collect and record information from each other.

 

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