Māori Lessons made Fun

We have been learning our Pepeha's in class. Rather than just do them for the sake of doing them I wanting the students to really find out where they came from. I was impressed with how excited the students were. Many of them have taken their arts and language book home to find out more about where their ancestors are from, and have come back to school excited to share their findings.

 I had used a visual mihi last year for students to share their pepeha and the students last year seem to enjoy it. They have really enjoyed it this year. I decided not to use a template, and let students design and present their pepeha any way they saw fit. One we finish it, we will create a koworai to go around the outside, then present it.

Because we had been doing so much around I Pepeha's I decided to mix it up and start teaching the students how to say how are you.

At the start of the lesson I introduced them to the phase Kei te pehea koe? All of them had heard the answer Kei te pai ahau. I did a bit of role playing with the students saying that I was tired, but when people asked me Kei te pehea koe we also go to the default of Kei te PAI ahau. All of the students agreed, so we started to look at different ways of saying how we are in Māori.
We went over bored, happy, sad, tired, hungry. I was surprised at how much the students were soaking it up, and wanting more!

To finish off the lesson I taught the class how to play Paki Whetu. They loved it! Certainly a real hit with everyone! I was impressed with how engaged everyone