Telling Stories Activity
Why do it?
Sharing oral stories with tamariki is a great way to:
- Encourage creativity and imagination
- Include your tamaiti in the creation of the story
- Show them that stories can be made up anytime or anywhere
- Reduce the reliance of devices for entertainment
- Improve their listening skills and extend their vocabulary
- Use the mother tongue of your whānau
- Share whānau memories
- Stay connected with whānau who don’t live nearby by including them in it
- Preserve culture by sharing whakapapa and whānau values and tikanga
- Talk through topics that could be worrying tamariki
- Identify what your tamaiti might need and personalize your story in response. For example:
- Is it a calming story to help them settle to sleep?
- Is it to uplift them if they’ve experienced something sad or upsetting recently?
- Or is it one to just cuddle up and have a laugh together?
The beauty is you get to control all aspects of the story when you tell your own!
How to do it
You could…
- Create the story together by asking your tamaiti what they’d like this story to be about?
- Discuss who the characters might be and develop them by talking about their looks, how they behave, what they like to do or things that might make them feel scared
- Share a familiar story they know from a book
- Create your own whānau version of a familiar story
- Make all the characters people from within your whānau
- Make the story up based on a happy memory from your childhood
- Share a story you liked when you were a child
- Personalize the story by making it about something your tamaiti enjoys doing or is trying to master
- Retell something that happened during the day into a story for the evening
- Think about the things that make your tamaiti frightened and then have the main character face and overcome the same fears.
- If need be have some prepared starters, for example:
- ‘the day you came into our whānau…’
- ‘when we slept at our marae…’
- ‘the day the river flooded…’
Using more te reo Māori
| Me haere tāua titro atu... | Let's you and me go and look at... |
| Ki te ngāhere | To the bush |
| Ki te oneone | To the beach |
| Ki te awa | To the river |
| Me whakamaua ō kamuputu | Put your gumboots on |
| Wai | Water |
| Ua | Rain |
| Kapua | Cloud |
| Tōhihi | Puddle of water |
| Kei te kite ahau i OR E kite ana ahau i... | I see |
| Kei te rongo ahau i | I hear |
| Kei te rongo ahau i te kakara o... | I smell |
| E haere ana mātou ki te tātahi ki te kohi kai moana | We're going to the beach to get seafood |
| Nāku i kite ētahi anga | I found some shells |
| Ko wai te ingoa o tō keretao? | What's your puppet's name? |
| Kei hea tāna kai? | Where does she live? |
| He aha tāna kai? | What does he eat? |
| E haere ana ia ki hea? | Where is she going? |
| Whakarongo | Listen |
| Āta whakarongo | Listen carefully |
| Kia mataara | To be alert, vigilant |
| Kia tūpato | Be careful |
| Kimi(hia) | Look for, search |
| Rapu(hia) | Hunt, investigate |
| Kite(a) | Find, discover |
| Pārekareka | Enjoyable, fun |
| Kāinga | Home |
| Kaiako | Teacher |
| He tino pai tō mahi | You've done a good job |
| Pārekareka | Fun |
| Tunu kai | Cooking food |
| Ehuehungia te māra | Water the garden |
| Horoia te motokā | Wash the car |
| Rārangi kai | Groceries |
| Māhirahira | Curiouis |
| Hua whenua | Vegetables |
| Hua rākau | Fruit |
| Mīti | Meat |
| Ika | Fish |
| Huakina te pouaka | Open up the box |
| He aha kei roto i te pēke? | What's inside the bag? |
| Whiua ki te ipupara | Throw it in the rubbish bin |
| Horoia ō ringaringa | Wash your hands |
| He rawe to āwhina mai | Your'e a great helper |
