This Term, in the first few weeks we have had eight new enrolments in our class. We wanted to make them feel at home and also wanted to know about all of them. We decided to do this through shared reading.
We chose to read "Watercress Tuna and the Children of Champion Street".
It is very important to celebrate every students culture in the class and acknowledge what they bring with them. The text that we had chosen was a perfect pick.
After reading the text we asked students wrote their stories about Tuna coming to Tamaki Primary and bringing things that were valuable in their culture. One of the stories that a student wrote read:
'The Tuna with the magical korokoro jumped out of Tamaki river, went on to Alamein road and came to Tamaki Primary school. It came to me and opened it's waha wide. I pulled out a piupiu. I wore the piupiu and began to kanikani.'
by- Joshua
Everyone used words from their languages to describe their item.
The next day students got lavalavas, piupius, pois and other traditional clothes from home. We took photos and made a class shared book about the magical tuna coming to our school.
This was a very powerful, engaging lesson. Building on students life experiences, talking and learning to read and write about their lives and their cultures was very empowering. All students were engaged and wanted to share and show off about their little things that they had brought to school.
Current real world examples help students connect to the curriculum, allow for deeper engagement and help students make their connections with individual and global identities.
A classroom can definitely be a space for students to develop and explore their social consciousness.
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