This is my Tinana!

Our tamariki always get excited for their favourite time of the day which is circle time. This is the reason, Teacher S planned an activity to learn parts of the body in Te Reo Māori. Most of our children love to have fun doing yoga in the evenings as well as exercises during circle time, and at the moment our topic is The Human Body, so this activity was very popular!

"This outline represents a human body. Some of the parts of the body names you all knew through our Tinana song are Mähunga, Pakahiwi, Puku, Hope, Waewae!. This is my Tinana."

Teacher S explained that today we are going to work together to learn the parts of the body in Te Reo Māori. Here, our fun began. Although most of our tamariki can't read, some of our pre-schoolers can!
S was reading the parts of the body one by one and asking the question "Where is your Puku which means tummy/stomach?"

One of our other teachers asked, "Can you all touch your Puku?" The children all found their Puku with their hands. Then each child took a turn to attach a label of each part of the body into the magnetic board.

Our children were so confident in listening to what the word said and then taking turns patiently before it was their turn to label a body part. They displayed grace and courtesy skills by respecting each other, and we learnt a lot of body part names in Māori:

Puku - Stomach

Hope - Hips

Kakī - Neck

Makawe - Hairs

Uma - Chest

Pakihiwi - Shoulder

Taringa - Ears

Ringaringa - Arms

Waewae - Leg

Turi - Knee

Māhunga - Head

Nono - Bottom

Ihu - Nose

Whatu - Eyes

Waha - Mouth

Ringa - Hands


After this activity, we talked about how we keep our bodies healthy. We discussed that we do exercise and yoga to keep fit and healthy. Then we all took part in the classic song for yoga "Fly like a Butterfly". It is really a wonderful waiata(song) to perform with everyone showing how they could do the butterfly pose - our children all loved this song.

"The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.” - Maria Montessori.