When a teacher MUST share something a 10yr old wrote!

Perhaps I should have been playing traditional indigenous music in class the other day.  

I've been chewing over that thought for a few hours now......

You see... I played classical guitar to my year 4 kids while they wrote a historical recount from the perspective of an Indigenous Australian from the time before Europeans.

 

I should stress less about what music was played.  The class produced beautiful work.  

They had 45 minutes.  (While Chopin and Debussy weaved their spells)

Lollie (nickname - don't worry) produced what you see below.

The Best Corroboree Ever!  (By a really clever 10yr old who we all call Lollie)

Today my dad went fishing with my uncle Curri and my brother Jemmori at the billabong.  I was jealous because Dad said that I couldn’t go fishing and hunting.  Instead, I went picking berries and grasses with my mum and my auntie. 

We went into our tribe’s bush area and picked one whole basket.  I tasted one of the berries and it was very yummy.  On the way we saw a koala in a gum tree.  We also saw people climbing trees.  They were looking for native bees to get honey from.

When we came back to our campfire, we started grinding grass seeds we’d found into flour.  Then we started to cut berries and spices.  While Mum and Auntie Tuckoo made flour, I played with the animals nearby.  I heard water rushing and the sound of a boomerang bouncing.  People must have been hunting kangaroos. 

Dad, Uncle Curri and Jemmori came home.  They had lots of fish.  We couldn’t possibly eat all of it, but a few minutes later, we heard some people in a canoe say there was going to be a corroboree tonight so we thought we could bring along some berries and fish.

When we heard the bush telephone, we knew the corroboree was starting.  We brought our food along to the tribe campfire and as we were entering, we heard the sound of the emu callers.  I thought it was a real emu.  We could also hear a didgeridoo playing and some tap sticks.  There were people dressed up in traditional costumes to do a dance.  Some people used a club and a shield to make an animal’s baby.  A lot of them were emus.

We placed our food on the feast rug.  There were lots of other yummy things too.  They looked very nice.  Mum had brought some paper bark with her so she could wrap the fish in it, tie it up with pieces of grass and put it on a small fire to cook.  The fire was made by the fire maker which had a couple of holes and you would put a stick in the hole and you would rub the stick around and around until it would make a fire.

Once all the food was on the rug, we started with some dancing and singing.  Then we stopped and I stared at the Southern Cross.  It looked like an emu.  The emu watched over us all night.  We then had the feast of fish and berries and Mum told me to eat the kangaroo because it is the healthiest meat.  Some people brought cooked witchetty grubs.  They were very yummy as well.  Mum told me I could remember the camp site by the funny looking tree.

I really enjoyed the evening.  My favourite part was the smiles and the feast.  I wish I could have gone fishing, but picking berries was still great.  I don’t think there could have been a better day!

I value your thoughts below, as I will share each of them with Lollie personally on Monday morning.