Whanaungtanga and turangawaewae are among our core values at Wesley Kindergarten that lead our daily practice. Our community knows how to party! We often look forward to sharing our excitement and pride, showcasing the richness that exists in our diverse community, during Language Weeks and celebrations. The (very!) long rāhui provided us with challenges to keep our connection with our tamariki and whānau, learning with and from each other. It was challenging not to have daily connection with whānau to seek their expertise and leadership to plan celebrations for Tongan, Tokelauan, Niuean, Tuvaluan and Te Reo Māori Language Weeks as well as Diwali festival during the long rāhui. The Ministry of Pacific Peoples provides wonderful online resources on their site that we used during our online Storypark daily mat times during Language weeks to sing multilingual greeting songs, introduce new waiata, learn new vocabulary and phrases, play games and read stories.
We had a great sense of gratitude, receiving responses from whānau, sharing photos and video clips of tamariki dressing up in traditional costumes, singing waiata or greeting in their languages, displaying pride in their cultural identities.
We involved our tamariki in a treasure hunt to search for kulokula (red) objects and natural resources during Tongan Language Week to make Tongan flags. This experience was then further extended and some of our tamariki and kaiako enjoyed creating different forms of art using natural resources (ephemeral art, pressed flowers, pattern making, flower printing) that they found in their backyard or neighbourhood. We continued our learning about Niuean, Tokelauan, Tuvaluan and Tongan Māori Languages during our Wednesday online interactive sessions with a small group of whānau and children in fun and playful ways. One of the experiences was sharing ideas to make ngā poi at home, and having fun singing and dancing with them together.
One of the experiences that kaiako enjoyed the most during Te Reo Māori Language Week, was developing our own pepeha and inviting whānau to create one with their tamariki. This was a meaningful and powerful experience for our teaching team as we explored and shared our whakapapa and turangawaewae. We reflected that during these uncertain times, this experience has nurtured our mana atua (sense of spiritual well-being) and mana whenua (sense of belonging). We would like to continue exploring our pepeha as a community, and include them within our learning environment.
We were fortunate to have Sunita leading us to celebrate Diwali, the festival of colours and lights. We enjoyed making and decorating rangoli patterns in front of the kindergarten entrance to welcome happiness health, prosperity, love, friendship and good fortune for our kindergarten whānau in the coming year. In response we received photos from one of our families from Sri Lanka who shared photos of their ritual and ceremonies during Diwali celebration on Storypark.
Our aim during the rāhui was to maintain our reciprocal relationships with our tamariki and whānau and to promote our sense of kotahitanga and manaakitanga. During Level 3 we delivered the education packs that we received from Ministry of Education to our whānau. Receiving appreciation and positive feedback from our whānau motivated us to make more learning packs and deliver them to our tamariki. The packs contained art and craft resources, felt pens, beads, colour paper, play dough, books, cookie cutters, and recipes for whānau (to make play dough, ceramic dough and bubble mixture). Our aim was to take the sense of fun, exploration, playfulness, learning and creativity that kindergarten promotes to the homes of tamariki. We felt connected to our tamariki, while delivering the packs to their homes – sharing a sense of manaaki and aroha.
