Yearlevel: F 2

Welcome to the Civics and Citizenship Curated Clip Collection. While this resource is still in development, we are excited to offer a pilot version to support teachers during the election period. Each module includes a short video from an Australian television series, along with accompanying activities designed to help students explore the importance of leadership, democracy and being an active citizen. As we continue to build and refine this resource, more videos and materials will be added to enhance the learning experience. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your support as we continue to develop this resource for classrooms.

This clip collection is designed to help students understand and practice respectful communication, focusing on concepts of consent, bodily autonomy and personal boundaries. Using clips from Australian children’s television content, students work through activities that build their awareness of how to ask for, give, and deny permission.

This resource provides a series of curated, age-appropriate screen stories, with a discussion point and creative response for students in Foundation to Year 10. Invite culture leaders and knowledge holders featured in these screen texts into the classroom for NAIDOC and beyond – to celebrate the resilience, generosity, creativity, and enduring strength of the oldest living culture in the world.  

This resource centres on the personal and social skills and understandings that are explored in each episode of the children’s series, Eddie’s Lil’ Homies. It includes concepts, discussion starters and hands-on learning tasks that support Foundation to Year 2 students to understand themselves and others, supporting them to navigate relationships in the classroom and beyond.

The Kangaroo Beach Series 2 learning resource is a classroom-based water safety education tool for Foundation – Year 2 students and teachers. The resource contains eight lesson plans to use alongside school swimming lessons, as part of class inquiries into health and safety, or to address Health and Physical Education curriculum content in an engaging way. Lesson plans correspond to key learning areas in the National Swimming and Water Safety Framework, and each lesson:

• Identifies a relevant Kangaroo Beach episode and water safety message.
• Links to the relevant Framework skills.
• Lists conceptual vocabulary for teachers to clarify with children as needed, depending on the English language skills of their student cohort.
• Provides comprehension questions with corresponding time stamps.
• Includes a choice of three different follow-up activities, related to the themes and target skills.

The Kangaroo Beach Series 1 Resource is a water safety education resource for F-2 students and teachers. The resource contains eight lesson plans to use alongside school swimming lessons, as part of class inquiries into health and safety, or to address Health and Physical Education curriculum content in an engaging way. The water safety advice in this resource has been reviewed and endorsed by Surf Life Saving Australia.

Lesson plans correspond to key learning areas in the National Swimming and Water Safety Framework, addressing Hazards and Personal Safety, Entries and Exits, Flotation, Swimming, Underwater, Lifesaving, Rescue, and Survival Sequence. Each lesson identifies a relevant Kangaroo Beach episode and water safety message, lists comprehension questions for the class or individual students, and includes a student activity sheet related to the theme. The resource will improve or consolidate students’ knowledge of safe behaviours around water, empowering them to contribute to their own safety.

NAIDOC week is an opportunity to highlight First Nations perspectives in the classroom. In 2023, the NAIDOC Week theme is For Our Elders. We acknowledge the continued achievements, contributions, and knowledges of Elders in our communities.

We are proud to present these engaging learning tasks for students in F-10. The leading knowledge holders who feature on our screens are to be shared for NAIDOC and beyond – to celebrate our Elders.

Meet the characters in Eddie’s Lil’ Homies and learn how they navigate the fun and challenges of friendship. Each character brings unique skills and perspectives to the playground: embracing and respecting these differences makes the gang stronger!

Students in Foundation to Year 2 are invited to join the ACTF, ACMI and AFL legend Eddie Betts in this engaging virtual workshop. Eddie will discuss the characters in the new children’s series Eddie’s Lil’ Homies, and what we can learn from their interactions. Students will apply their learning by designing a fictional character based on their qualities and skills. Follow-up activities for the classroom will also be provided to teachers.

Drawing on a range of Australian children’s television programs, this resource builds students’ understanding of the reasons we create and view screen stories– to entertain, to teach, and to communicate ideas, feelings, and culture. Students explore the different ways in which screen stories can be told and reflect on their responses as audience members.

How is colour used to build the story? How does light create mood? How do animators use colour and light together to create rich screen content we want to watch?

How is colour used to build the story? How does light create mood? How do animators use colour and light together to create rich screen content we want to watch?

The use of lighting and colour in television has the power to influence the audience’s mood. In this virtual workshop, early years students are introduced to the use of light and colour in Australian Children’s Television Foundation content to learn about how these elements impact the mood of the story.

In our free virtual workshop, students discover the importance of light and colour from animated episodes that brighten our world! Thinking of these two elements as tools students in Foundation – Year 2 consider the decisions that were made to create stories that build happy, scary, funny, or sad moments.

Are You Tougher Than Your Ancestors? explores familiar historic periods and events through the eyes of children who lived through them. Each episode reveals an incredible true story of a resilient and courageous child from the past, and challenges modern-day children to emulate their experiences. Through these participants’ firsthand experiences, students see what their lives would have been like in a different era. The Are You Tougher than Your Ancestors? resource is a History resource for Foundation to Year 6 teachers and students. Episodes and suggested learning tasks relate to the key understandings and inquiry skills outlined in the History sub-strand of the F-6/7 Humanities and Social Sciences curriculum.

The Hoopla Doopla: English & Chinese Language Resource contains both English and Mandarin language versions of 13 selected episodes from the Hoopla Doopla! TV series.

A unique series aimed at children aged three to seven years, Hoopla Doopla! uses physical action and comedy to entertain and to drive the narratives. A number of the 52 episodes are based on Chinese celebrations, including ‘Trading Places’. This episode centres on the Lantern Festival which takes place during the first month of the Lunar New Year.     

Teachers can access freely available support materials for three episodes – including ‘Trading Places’ through our Hoopla Doopla!: English and Chinese Language Resource. Developed in partnership with the Asia Education Foundation for lower primary students (F-2), the learning sequences in this resource are based on the Inquiry model of Engage, Explore and Reflect, and are aligned to the Australian Curriculum.

This resource provides opportunities for discussion and activities for primary age students related to the key learning areas of Science, Humanities, English, Health and The Arts.

Teachers may choose to screen the Dogstar series sequentially or they may select particular episodes and use those activities from this guide that meet the needs of their students or that relate to topics being investigated in their classroom. Discussion questions and activities are provided in this guide to support a number of the central themes explored throughout the series including families, relationships and feelings; humans, pets and other animals; heroes and villains; technology and inventions; responsibility for the natural environment and the future.

Information about the development, production and technology behind the series has been included to assist teachers of older students to develop learning experiences in relation to animation and to the creation of this series.

This resource was developed through a partnership between the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) and Tina Harris and Mark Harris – two of the lead creatives behind the popular children’s series, Lah-Lah’s Adventures. Music for Everyone explores the elements of music as outlined in the Australian Curriculum in a fun and accessible way. The simple lesson plans, music clips and additional videos provided in the resource will support generalist teachers in getting started with F-2 music education. 

Lah-Lah’s Adventures: Music for Everyone provides an introduction to the building blocks of music: rhythm, pitch, expression, form, timbre, and texture. Created for busy classroom teachers who are new to music education, the units in the resource can be undertaken with little prior knowledge or preparation, and won’t require access to a room full of musical instruments.

“It’s really interesting that a lot of generalist teachers are actually using music every day already – in the classroom, in assembly, in the playground – and maybe they don’t actually realise that they’re using it. I think the wonderful thing about this particular program is it’s just building on skills that teachers already have.” – Tina Harris. 

Lah-Lah’s Adventures: Music for Everyone contains:

• 24 video tutorials for teachers by Tina Harris and Mark Harris (a.k.a Lah-Lah and Buzz)
• 18 music clips from the Lah-Lah’s Adventures series that illustrate musical concepts
• 22 Curriculum-mapped lesson plans for the six elements of music (Rhythm, Pitch, Expression, Form, Timbre, and Texture)
• PDF Teachers’ Guide containing curriculum links and practical tips for the classroom.
• Login access to Music for Everyone Online, and download link for Music for Everyone videos and curriculum content.

Sample Lesson Plan

Rhythm – Lesson 1

WALT: Listen for and move to the beat in music.

DISCUSSION STARTER

Have you ever heard your heartbeat through a stethoscope? What does it sound like? It has a regular beat: thump-thump, thump-thump. The beat always stays steady, but it can speed up if you run around, and it slows down when you are calm.

The steady pulse in music is also called the ‘beat’. It’s a regular kind of rhythm that we can hear or feel.

Just like a heartbeat, the beat in music can only be changed by speeding it up or slowing it down. The speed of the beat is called its tempo.

LEARNING TASK

Watch Lah-Lah’s Adventures clip the ‘Woody the Woodwind’ with your class to see Lah-Lah, Buzz and the Big Live Band walking in time with the beat. Can you walk in time with the beat, too? When students are comfortable walking to the beat, they could try marching or jumping to the beat instead. What other ways can you move to the beat?

The beat changes in the second half of the song when the tempo slows for one verse. Can you slow down your movements to match the slower beat? As a fun variation for moving to the beat, students could sit in a circle and pass a ball to the beat.

The Bushwhacked! Australian Flora and Fauna Resource was developed by Samantha Doggett (Teacher, Serpell Primary School)

“I have been working this term on the new program Bushwhacked! This has been a wonderful series that Grade 1 children have thoroughly enjoyed. This series would easily attract all primary school years from Foundation to Grade 6. They have gained extensive knowledge about Australian animals, landscape and Indigenous traditions.”

Since 2018, the ACTF has delivered an annual student writing competition based on the themes in My Place, encouraging thousands of students across Australia to reflect on and write about place, community and history.

This year, we encourage schools to run their own My Place Competition.