Te wiki o te reo rangatira!

Nau mai, haere mai ki te wiki o te reo Māori. Hope you are having a successful week whatever your goals are.

Ākitia te reoencourage the language. If you haven’t seen the great resources from Te Taurawhiri here they are. (I love that they have sound bites!)
Because there are so many resources available  for this years theme I thought I would offer something a little different.
The emphasis is in using more te reo in and out of the akomanga and it is an asset to have different kinds of input of te reo.

It’s quite hard to find  te reo stories at the right level, pitched at level 1-2, interesting and easily comprehended for different year levels. There is also the problem of the kaiako sometimes not being able to read the stories.
Back in the day a big part of my programme was shared book. The book/pūrākau was introduced on day 1 and different aspects of the grammar and kupu hou were highlighted each day until on day 5 the content and kupu hou were well understood by the tamariki and we could then continue  using the kupu hou in our own sentences.

Māori Television has put together a series of 10 Māori Myths that are presented in Māori, English and Maori with English! Very useful. Although they have child actors with a child version the pūrākau are based on Māori myths.
If you are teaching in a bilingual class you can use them as you would for any of your other resources.(Look for numbers 1-10 on thinglink)


For mainstream you have several choices:

  • listen first in Māori (numbered)
  • get the “gist”-What do you think is happening?
  • identify any words you may have heard before
  • listen once in english (black star)
  • once more in Māori
  • word build-identify some of the kupu hou
This can be elaborated on, especially if you have made yourself familiar with the content. You could ask
“What are he things Pania is using to make her friend?
The clip can be paused and relayed.
“What is the word for stone?”
“He aha te kupu Māori mō “stone”?
There is also the option for Māori with english commentary
(white triangle in red circle). 
I like using this one as a starting point and then moving on to reo Māori anakē.

The point is that there doesn’t need to be 100% understanding of every word.The benefits are hearing the mita o te reo and the sounds and words becoming more familiar.(Although they are a great way of word building)
These pūrākau are there for you to   include more te reo  in your classroom, normalising reo through pūrākau and making them a solid part of your programme. Let’s not forget that there is much tikanga that can be learnt through these pūrākau too!
Ākitia te reo!
Kia pai tō wiki o te reo Māori
P.S Thanks for all the communication. I have added a simple activity to “add on” to the pūrākau.
These are mini “match flap books” and are fun for the tamariki to make.
The worksheet looks like this



There are 2 to a page. The questions can be applied to any story and you can use as much te reo Māori as you have.
Once the flap book is cut out it will look like this-

Try it and let me know how it goes. It’s simple but can be extended to the level of the ākonga.Tāu kē