Have a treasure hunt with tamariki, either indoors or outdoors, and build their imagination. Whānau can observe and talk about maths ideas and introduce new kupu during the hunt to enhance early language learning.

Why do it?

Why do it? / He aha e mahi ai?

So tamariki can:

  • Enjoy the anticipation of searching and finding ‘treasure’
  • Use both their problem solving and motor skills in one activity
  • Have fun either indoors or outside in the fresh air
  • Enrich their language through describing and comparing items in their collection
  • Observe and talk about maths ideas like same, different, more, less, small, big, longer and shorter.

How to do it

How to do it / Te tikanga mō tēnei mahi:

  • Ask your tamaiti what sort of treasures they would like to hunt for and have a few different containers to put them in
  • Vary where you hunt. Outdoors is great – garden, street, park, moana, awa, ngāhere
  • Suggest a focus for the treasure hunt. It might be general like treasures from the beach or be more specific like different shells
  • Tamariki may be able to identify small groups inside a bigger group, another maths idea. For example, ‘In our collection of shells, can we sort all the big shells, middle sized shells and the little shells.’
  • They could also look for specific characteristics such as colour, size or shape –‘Let’s hunt for round things’ or ‘Let’s see how many black shells we can find.’
  • Ask open questions to help your tamaiti notice details –‘You’ve found a lot of leaves. These ones look like a family. What leaf families can you see?
  • If you’ve collected any living things, put them back where they were living when you’re done.

Other ideas / Ētahi atu whakaaro:

  • Display collections so you can keep looking at them and talking about them – a shoe box lid works well
  • Make collage pictures with treasures that can be glued or taped to cardboard
  • Make a simple book about the treasures. Give it a title – ‘Treasures from te moana’. Your tamaiti can draw the pictures and whānau could write a short sentence about each picture
  • Read the book together and more kōrero will happen as you relive the experience.

Use more reo Māori

Te reo Māori English
Treasure
Whakarapua taonga Treasure hunting
Look for, search
E kimi ana au mō ngā angaanga. I’m looking for shells
E kimi ana a Mere mo ngā angaanga iti. Mere’s looking for little shells