Dot Painting Stories

On Wednesday, 1st June 2022, the Year 3 students went on an excursion to CERES Environmental Park in Brunswick, where they took part in a variety of activities. These included learning about Aboriginal cultures, traditions, art, dance, and games. The students particularly enjoyed the dot painting activity. They painted symbols on their arms to create their own dreamtime story. The students learnt that Aboriginal/ Indigenous people used symbols to tell stories. Students then wrote their narrative stories in their writing books. Some of them are written below:

The Aboriginals were in a group, singing: ‘Let it rain! Let it rain!’. The land was dry, and the water dried up the night before. The group was thirsty and some of the kids died of thirst.

The 2nd day of the dry land, the Aboriginals sang: “Let it rain! Let it rain!’. The land was still dry, and the water dried up 2 days ago. The group was thirsty, and more kids died of thirst.

The 3rd day of the dry land, the Aboriginals sang: ‘Let it rain! Let it rain!’. The Aboriginals looked surprised! The rain has come! The water filled the land, and the group was happy. The beautiful rainbow came as the group danced. Athieng, 3A

A group of people were sitting around a campfire, when suddenly it was raining. They all looked for shelter, then a rainbow appeared with beautiful clouds, and they then sat down again. They then lit up the fire again. A few hours later, they then went on a walk and sat down on a sitting place and they saw a beautiful star that was shining bright.

The next day they sat down at the campfire and a fire just started nearby. A waterhole was running, and it calmed down the fire and the fire was soon to be gone. The Aboriginal people had a fruit that was special and that you could wish for anything you like. They used it only for wise things and the first wish was to increase the knowledge they know of nature on themselves. The second wish was on a valuable jewel. It was a thousand pounds for them in the olden days.

The next day they made a huge mistake. They wished for no rain and another mistake was that they wished for no sunlight. Weeks passed and no food or water was found or even rain and sunlight. There were emu and possum tracks, but they didn’t want to eat the emus or the possums. Months passed but no rain came or sunlight. A lady came after two days she said ‘let there be rain and sunlight’ but nothing happened.

She said, ‘where did this all start?’ they pointed at the fruit she then said ‘I wish for rain and sunlight!’ and at the same time it was raining and there was sunlight everyone cheered. Rain! Sunlight! Rain! Sunlight! Sachnirat, 3A

Splash! Some Aboriginal people were gathering water, because of a drought. Meanwhile, a group of people were praying to God for water. There had been heaps of water before the drought

It had been 40 days since the drought began, and they had no more water holes to collect water! They had separated into 10 groups to find water.

One day, an Aboriginal heard something splash! He then took a closer look, then realising there was a waterhole!

From that day on, the Aboriginals never went thirsty ever again. Kurtis, 3A