Class 3 ‘Te Akomanga Tuatoru’ 

The Class Three Child: “I am Who Are You” 

 

Te Amorangi ki mua, te hāpai o ki muri. 

The priest leads while the food carrier follows. 

 

The children will turn nine in this year, and the developmental stage known as the ‘nine-year-old crisis’ occurs around this time. The children now find that they are now ‘on the earth’, there is a perception of individuality and ‘aloneness’, and they no longer experience themselves as one with the world. The children will question those things that previously went unquestioned: “Who are you to tell me?”, “What is my real name?”, “Am I adopted?” They will push boundaries, venture forth fearlessly when you wish they wouldn’t and shrivel up fearfully where once they were confident. With the ninth year there comes an important stage in the development of the growing child, and this should be carefully watched and considered when designing and teaching the Māori Curriculum. It is the age when the child first really feels separate from their surroundings, which formerly were taken for granted. Self-consciousness becomes noticeably stronger and the soul-life more inward and independent. All the child’s powers of consciousness stir to life, and a wish to learn to know both teacher and world from a new angle. The nine-year-old wants to revere consciously what was formally loved in a childlike way, but needs to feel that reverence is justified. This age makes great claims on the wisdom and tact of the teacher. The children need to be protected from a feeling of disappointment with themselves or the world, which they can so easily fall into at this age, especially in the presence of world-weary adults. 

 

The Task  

The separation of Papatūānuku and Ranginui mirrors the soul feeling of the nine-year-olds who now experience themselves truly separated from the spiritual world; heaven is lost to them and who will care for them?  

 

The Pakiwaitara that tell of the creation of the heavens and the world. The great love between Papatūānuku and Ranginui and their deeds of their many children, will all enhance the student’s experience of the mystery of the world’s being. 

 

As the children now experience their bodies as the ‘house of the soul’, Themes in te reo Māori lessons can be developed such as the connection between the body and the wharenui.  This ties in with their studies on ‘House Building’.  Cultivating of traditional foods such as the kūmara and kowenewene, teaches the history of growing food and caring for the soil and the body. 

 

 

Time 

From a Māori perspective, the teacher could introduce the concepts of tracking the rhythm of the day, a week, a month and a year. The division of the year into its four seasons, and festivals such as ‘Matariki’.  The modern division of the day into hours, minutes and seconds will also be traced and the corresponding sentence structures learned. 

 

Money 

The concept that ‘money is work’ can be explored through story and the concept and language around the concept of ‘utu’ brought to the children through role play. 

 

Approach 

In their third year at school, the children’s growing understanding has to be taken into account and the children should be made more consciously aware of the use of Te reo. They have now a much stronger feeling for language, for nuances of both pronunciation and meaning. They require longer, more varied sentences to learn. They enjoy acting out humorous scenes and short plays that involve individual students learning roles and acting these out alone. Texts are learned that will later be written, key elements of grammar are rehearsed orally (singular and plural, persona; and possessive pronouns, articles). Recitation, karakia, waiata and kapa haka is part of every lesson. 

 

Approach/Content (For the specialist Teacher) 

 

• Pakiwaitara are a big part of the lessons in this year group, which are used to portray human qualities.  

• The Creation myths  

• Ngā Atua and their journey from a time of darkness into ‘Te Ao Mārama’ 

• Te wharenui – the significance of the house 

• Representation of an ancestor   

• Naming parts of a house 

• Te paamu – The farm  

• Basic story of a farm in te reo Māori 

• Naming animals on a domestic farm 

• Counting animals 

• Being able to answer how many types of animals there are from the story 

• Describing an animal; size, colour 

• Responding to being asked where you are going – Kei te haere au ki te ……. 

• Responding to being asked what you are doing there – ki te ….. 

• Waiata-a-ringa 

• Korikori Tinana 

• Ngā kēmu – language games 

• Extended mihimihi – Toko….. ngā tāngata i taku whānau 

• Beginning to look at familiar kupu Māori are spelt; names, taonga from a story. 

• Dialogues and little conversations are more demanding now: Familiar topics are supplemented and new ones introduced. These include numbers, places (town, village, country), forms of transport, times of day, the clock (time) food and drink, more complex commands, sayings and simple stories. 

• Acting out and learning individual parts of a dramatized story. 

• Picture dictionaries (e.g. “draw a man with a red hat. His trousers are brown…”) 

• Main prepositions - runga, roto, waho, muri, in the room, on the chair etc. 

• Important questions like ‘Who’ ‘Ko wai’ ‘What’ ‘He aha’ ‘When ‘ and ‘Where’ 

• Asking and saying how much something costs “He aha te utu mo te….” 

 

 

Learning Outcomes 

 

By the end of Class 3, most children will be able to: 

 

• Be familiar with basic items of food, (especially produced on a farm) clothing, furniture 

• Be familiar with directions (on left, to the right) 

• Be familiar with the times of the day (te ata, te ahipō etc.), clock times (hours, quarter hours, minutes) 

• Be aware of different genders. 

• Name most common animals and say what sounds they make 

• Take a more active part orally (act out a role using te reo) 

• Recognize the most common question words – Ko wai/He aha/E hia 

• Be able to use the main special prepositions in context – Kei runga/raro/mua/muri 

• Recognize the main personal and possessive nouns. 

• Children able to ask how much something costs 

 

 

Story Content 

Creation Stories  

 

Themes 

• Farming 

• House Building 

• Time 

• Measurement 

• Money 

 

Possible learning Content (for class teachers) 

• Waiata-a-ringa 

• Simple karakia 

• Stories of Creation - Ranginui and Papatūānuku 

• Simple sentence structures asking what noise various animals make 

• Planting and cultivating traditional Māori kai 

• Learning months of the year 

• Telling the time using te Reo Māori. 

• Looking at structure of wharenui? 

• Form drawing using mirror images of NZ coins