The Children's Home and Community Knowledge

Young Aboriginal children in the Kimberley have a rich variety of experiences before they come to school. This list, compiled by the Aboriginal Teaching Assistants at the schools involved in the project, outlines some of the experiences and knowledge that students are likely to have had by the time they get to school.

At Home

• Helping to look after younger siblings
  
• Learning their first name and surname
  
• Copying the activities of adult role models around the home, eg packing away, cleaning, raking, watering, naming and using the utensils in the home
  
• Learning the family relationships of their immediate and extended family
  
• Learning the sign languages used in the community, eg pointing with the chin, mouth or hands, nodding their head
• Using pens, pencils or crayons to scribble or draw on paper
• Learning to answer the phone to talk to family and friends
• Learning to give directions about where they live
• Helping with the preparation of food
• Learning about people's moods, and understanding the positive and negative attitudes expressed through body language
• Making their own beds
• Learning to count using number names but sometimes making mistakes in the sequence
• Listening to Dreamtime stories and stories about their families
• Understanding when they are sick and reporting it straight away
• Talking to Kartiyas [non-Indigenous people] and maybe understanding that Kartiya language is different from home language
• Identifying and caring for their own pets
• Distinguishing between fruit and vegetables
• Learning to use the electrical equipment around the home
• Dressing themselves and choosing what they like to wear

In the Local Environment

• Recognising and copying local animal tracks
  
• Catching small animals
  
• Collecting eggs from birds
  
• Knowing the names of different bush foods and understanding which ones are poisonous
  
• Knowing the route and the direction to places in the natural environment such as fishing areas, hunting areas, sacred sites, law grounds and other dangerous places
  
• Knowing how to use fishing rods and spears when out at fishing holes
  
• Knowing how to cook food in the bush o Knowing how to safely make a fire and use it to cook fish and small animals
  
• Knowing how to roll up a swag
  
• Watching larger animals be gutted and cooked