At Aorere kindergarten we love to celebrate our Cultural diversity. During the week of the 16th of October to the 20th of October 2017, we celebrated Niuean language week. The theme of the week is ‘Ko e Vagahau Niue ko e Atefua he Tagata Niue’ – The Niue Language is the Heart of Niue People.

With the help of our Niuean whanau we planned a variety of Niuean inspired activities  for the week such as cooking/ baking, art, weaving, song and dance, stories at mat time, traditional games and shared kai. During the week we learnt about Niuean greetings, numbers and colours, the Niuean flag and about Niuean food. We cooked coconut bread and played Ta tika (a traditional game).

On Thursday the 19th of October we were very privileged to have Malachi’s whanau come in to kindergarten with a Niuean shared kai for us. They did activities such as coconut scraping, weaving, traditional children’s games, singing and dancing with everyone.

We celebrate Niuean language week (and all other language weeks) because we believe that celebrating and honouring different cultures and customs gives children the opportunity to understand and respect diversity and differences. We support positive attitudes towards different cultures and we endeavour to learn about different customs.