
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
Te reo Māori | English |
---|---|
Me haere tāua ki te tiro atu | Let's you and me go and look at... |
Ki te ngāhere | To the bush |
Ki tātahi | 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 |
E kite ana ahau i... | I see |
Kei te rongo ahau i | I hear a |
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 angaanga | I found some shells |
Ko wai te ingoa o tō keretao? | What's your puppet's name? |
Kei hea tana kai? | Where is her food? |
He aha tana 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 |
Kimihia | Look for, search |
Rapu | Hunt, investigate |
Kite(a) | Find, discover |
Pārekareka | Enjoyable, fun |
Kāinga | Home |
Kaiako | Teacher |
He tino pai tō mahi | Well done |
Pārekareka | Enjoyable, fun |
Tunu kai | Cooking food |
Ehuehungia te māra | Water the garden |
Horoia te motukā | Wash the car |
Rārangi kai | Groceries |
Māhirahira | Curious |
Huawhenua | Vegetables |
Hua rākau | Fruit |
Mīti | Meat |
Ika | Fish |
Huakina te pouaka | Open the box |
He aha kei roto i te pēke? | What is inside the bag? |
Whiua ki te ipupara | Throw it in the rubbish bin |
Horoia ō ringaringa | Wash your hands |
He rawe tō āwhina mai | You're a great helper |