YOUNG kindy-goers at Tewantin Community Kindergarten participated in an Indigenous art class with cultural educator Christine Stuart last week where they painted with traditional ochre.

The workshops were to celebrate NAIDOC Week and a way for the children to understand traditional art, culture and stories.

"It's a ochre workshop so it actually teaches them about how the Aboriginal people use the ochre on their faces and bodies and how it was important, but today we do a lot of ochre art on canvases,” Christine said.

"We really want to bring back traditional paint - I actually don't use paint I actually use ochre, I like to be traditional and use what the Gubbi Gubbi people used.”

"Ochre is lovely, the children get to crush the rocks, mix it with water, they get an understanding how important the ochre was to the Aboriginal and Gubbi Gubbi people, it's fantastic.”

"Ochre's not like normal paint, you have to go over it several times with a brush.”

Christine visited the kindy twice last week and worked with the children to teach them traditional symbols which they painted onto small canvases.

The paintings were then put together to create a large mosaic for the kindy to keep.

"They never forget ochre after they've seen Christine,” she said.

Ochre rocks comes in many colours and sizes and each colour turns out differently depending on the rock creating different shades of red, orange, pink, brown and white.

"I collect rocks from everywhere some of these are from the Northern Territory and some from Western Australia,” Christine said.

Tewantin Community Kindergarten co-director Melissa Pettigrove said it was important for the children to develop a cultural awareness.

"It's really important to include Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander perspectives for the children,” she said.

"It's important for them to engage with different cultures and have a deeper understanding and at this age they are so interested.”