By Dia Prachakul
This provocation opened a rich inquiry with the Binit children (aged 3–4), inviting them to think about ‘work’, community, and life beyond their everyday experiences. We invited families to share photos and stories of their working lives via Kinderloop, and in doing so, families became co-researchers in our learning (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 2012).
The photos were different to the ones we usually share. They showed parents at work, doing things they are skilled in and passionate about. The children were immediately curious. They wanted to know about tools, uniforms, jobs, and especially how people travel to work. These conversations helped us see families as people who are more than parents, and they strengthened the relationships between home and school. The printed photos sparked lively discussions that deepened our inquiry. We invited families to visit us to talk about their work. This included Asha’s dad, Ben, the police man, and Arana, Lenny’s mum, the vet. These visits were wonderful connections to the world of work. We learned about Maya’s mum Rebekah who is a librarian at the State Library of NSW.
The children and educators began to wonder: “Could we visit Rebekah at work? Could we travel there on the bus?”
At first, we couldn’t visit the State Library because the children’s library was closed for renovations. While this was disappointing, it turned out to be a gift. It gave us time. Time to slow down, to imagine the journey, and to explore the children’s ideas through many different languages. It meant we had months to prepare for a trip to the city by public bus. We could be slow and intentional.
Months later, Rebekah excitedly told us that the children’s library was reopening and an exciting exhibition, The Curious World of Pamela Allen exhibition, was coming to the State Library. The time had come to adventure to the city! We felt it was important to build a relationship with the work we would encounter at the exhibition. The children immersed themselves in Pamela Allen’s picture books, including Mr McGee, Bertie the Bear, and Who Sank the Boat? We read books at group time, cuddled up in the book nook, listened to audio versions and even watched a video performance of Mr McGee and the Biting Flea. The stories began to emerge in the children’s dramatic play. Their familiarity with these stories developed into anticipation for the exhibition.
Story became something we didn’t just read, it was something we lived, through movement, play, imagination, and shared joy. This multimodal approach to literacy reflects the Reggio Emilia idea of the Hundred Languages of Children, where children express their thinking in many different ways, not only through words (Malaguzzi, 1998).
Mapping has long been a language of meaning-making for the Binit. As we prepared for our State Library adventure, mapping occurred through drawing, modelling, discussion, and digital research. The children explored where we were going, how we would get there, who we would be with, and what landmarks we might see along the way. Mapping functioned as an arts-based pedagogical practice, one that supported children to represent ideas visually and spatially, revise their thinking, and collaborate with others, valuing creative processes as legitimate ways of knowing, enabling children to think, reflect, and communicate beyond spoken language (Wright, 2012).
We shared photos of familiar places: the Booth Street bus stop, the IGA, Central Station’s clock tower, and Sydney Tower. The children’s excitement in recognising these places showed how geography intertwines with identity and belonging, fostering a sense of connection. Place-based pedagogy views local environments like streets, parks, buildings and transit routes as genuine learning contexts that support children’s sense of belonging, identity development, and socio-cultural awareness (Hughes, et al., 2022). By engaging with photographs of city landmarks, practising the bus journey, and walking to Camperdown Park to build road safety, children gained an embodied understanding of their relationship to place.
The whiteboard map became a collaborative canvas. Children’s drawings simplified complex buildings into basic geometric shapes, showing persistence, teamwork, and early understanding of maths. They returned to their maps again and again, adding magnetic tiles to build landmarks in three dimensions, matching their constructions to the drawings underneath, and negotiating whose ideas went where.
Mapping turned into storytelling, and storytelling into identity. What began as preparation for an excursion evolved into a shared narrative. Mapping became a way for the children to show how they think, how they collaborate, and how they imagine themselves moving through the city together.
To extend this thinking, the children and educators co-constructed a miniature cardboard bus, complete with seats, windows, and miniature figures to represent children and educators. The bus was a vehicle for rehearsing the steps of the journey and discussing the boundaries and expectations for the excursion. Through dramatic play, they practised boarding, sitting together, waiting and travelling. Dramatic play is an expressive language that allows children to embody ideas, negotiate social expectations, and revisit experiences symbolically (Edwards et al., 2012). The bus mirrored the mental work of mapping, supporting children in rehearsing and imagining their upcoming excursion.
Regular walks to Camperdown Park evolved into purposeful opportunities to practise moving safely and confidently through the city. Crossing busy roads, pausing for traffic lights and sharing the footpath with the community required children to pause, observe, and move together, developing trust, awareness, and shared responsibility. Movement, in this context, functioned as both learning and expression.
This project reminded us that preparation for an excursion doesn’t have to be rushed or purely logistical. When we slow down and pay attention, everyday experiences like reading stories, drawing maps, building with cardboard, and walking through the neighbourhood become powerful learning moments and rich sites of shared inquiry.
By honouring the Hundred Languages of Children, we recognised mapping as a language. When combined with the languages of storytelling, construction, dramatic play, and movement, mapping became a powerful way for children to think, plan and belong.
Most importantly, this journey showed us what is possible when educators listen closely, trust children’s thinking, and learn alongside them.
References
Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (2012). The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd ed.). Praeger.
Hughes, F., Elliott, S., Anderson, K., & Chancellor, B. (2022). Early years learning in Australian natural environments. Oxford University Press.
Malaguzzi, L. (1998). History, ideas, and basic philosophy: An interview with Lella Gandini. In C. Edwards, L. Gandini, & G. Forman (Eds.), The hundred languages of children (pp. 49–97). Ablex.
Wright, S. (2012). Children, meaning-making and the arts (2nd ed.). Pearson.
