Samoan Language Celebration.

It has been a busy and excited month for our Tui children. Celebration started with

introducing simple Samoan words such as greeting (Talofa), goodbye (tofa), counting

numbers from one to ten, learning colors and reading Samoan story books during our mat

times. Our children were keen to learn and practice to use these words throughout our daily

interactions.

One day we had the time to watch the Samoan legend stories. One of the children’s

interesting stories is about Sina and the eel, which was known as the main purpose of the

first coconut plant grows in Samoa. The coconut caught the attention of a number of

children, leading to a lot of questioning from children and discussion about the coconut.

“What is it?” “Where did it come from?” How did it look like? This inspired us all to do some

experiences and demonstration for children to learn and understand more about coconut.

The next day we brought coconuts to make observations of the tuna’s face reveals on it. As

we discussed I could see some children obviously made the connection between what they

saw in the story and what they realized. It was the flesh and juice, capture their interest.

More talking followed between the teachers and children, and the children decided to take

turn on tasting the coconut juice. After a little while, they waited patiently for a turn to

scrape the coconut. There was so much fun and curiosity as they focus on balancing their

seat while holding the coconut towards the scraper to get some flesh out. At the end I

squeeze the coconut cream out of the flesh and added into our ripe banana mash to make

our ‘poi’ (banana salad with coconut cream).

We also had the chance to make weaving where children built confidence to affirm

themselves as individual and work alongside others.

On the day of the main celebration, children and teachers were dressed up in cultural

attires. Some of our whanau and parents participated and witnessed our Samoan

performance by our children and teachers. It was an awesome day where children engaged

through participation and watching.

Celebrating different cultures is very important for young children as it acknowledges

children’s belonging, interdependence with others and the basis of relationship in defining

identities. Children’s learning is enhanced when culturally appropriate ways of

communicating are used.

As teachers we are encouraging whanau and families to get involved to share, contribute

and support our children understanding of other’s cultures and beliefs. Through this

celebration our children have opportunities to understand, learn and connect with those

around us as well as promoting children’s sense of belonging and supporting their holistic

development.

What Anaira was learning?

In this important cultural event celebration, we noticed Anaira has confident to work

alongside other children. She was new in the preschool at the time but her attitudes

towards learning and participating showed her feeling of comfortable enough to involve and

contributed to learn new things. As she has the opportunity to taste the coconut juice, she

looked like she didn’t want it but after observing her friends; she was willing to have a little

bit to taste. “Do you want to taste Anaira” I asked. “Yes, please” she replied. I like the way

she communicated. Anaira always showed good manners with her words ‘please’ and ‘thank

you’. After taking a zip of coconut juice, she sat for a little while and then asked for more

juice. Through her engaged in exploration, she was able to imagine, experiment and use her

ideas to make sense of the material world. She developed attitude of understanding how

things work. When she was scraping the coconut, I noticed her perseverance but never give

up on trying to getting some flesh out of the coconut. Anaira is a good dancer who actively

participated and enjoyed dancing and singing when we did our dance practice. But at the

celebration day, she was a bit nervous and wasn’t in the mood to perform. Anaira

demonstrated her curiosity and working theories through interacting and communicating

with her peers and Kaiako. Her sense of well-being and belonging has been developed as

she explored and contributed in all learning experiences offered. We will continue to work

together with Anaira to learn, build her confidence and develop more understanding about

her material world.

Written by; Leaso Partsch

For; June, 2021.