Get Wild About Wetlands these April Holidays

This April, the Centre saw a host of activities and engagements with the Get Wild About Wetlands (GWAW) school holiday program underway. These programs are always exciting and fun. But, above all, they give our kids a chance to relax and enjoy themselves after a long school term and pick up something new and exciting.

Our programs are known to be of good quality and provide safe recreational experiences for children. This April, we had four activities as a part of the GWAW school holiday program:

(1) Build a Mia Mia—Djeran is the season when the Nyungar people repaired their housing in preparation for Makuru (Winter). During this activity, the children took a short walk through the bush to collect twigs and leaves and then learnt how to build a Mia Mia (the traditional shelter). This program was delivered under the guidance of our Nyungar Elder in Residence, Marie J Taylor.

(2) Whose egg is that?—The Centre had a lovely start to Easter with this memorable early childhood and nature story-time session, reading stories and exploring all our egg-laying fauna! But, of course, the tiny tots also got to decorate their own cardboard egg shapes. Thanks to the City of Cockburn, State Natural Resource Management Program WA, and Lotterywest for supporting this wonderful initiative.

(3) Bat night stalk in the corridor—In this exciting night time adventure, children joined "Bat man" Joe Tonga to learn about our night time critters—our beautiful little microbats. Joe uses technology to help seek out these tiny mammals in their natural habitats and learn about their curious behaviours while also learning about how they contribute to our ecosystem.

(4) Paint a canvas—During this fun-filled and creative art session, artist Louise Collier worked with children to create paintings on canvas using leaves and acrylic paints. The kids had a blast learning simple and fun techniques to create textured backgrounds for their leaf-inspired art while enjoying a beautiful sunny day out on the lush wetlands precinct lawn.

The children enjoyed themselves and the activities thoroughly. And the feedback was very optimistic about the program content, staff, and venue from the children and their guardians.