Parenting with te reo Māori by Greyci Allen
As a māmā of four, raising my tamariki with a strong connection to their culture has been one of my most meaningful goals. My eldest daughter, now 10, and my 5-year-old twin sons attend kura reo Māori, and hearing them kōrero Māori so beautifully has been such an inspiration for my own journey.
We weave te reo Māori into our daily lives in simple but useful ways. Here’s how we incorporate learning into our routine, also showing that you don’t need to be fluent to begin creating a reo Māori rich environment in your home.
A routine reo Māori only space
One of our favourite ways we integrate te reo Māori is by dedicating a specific part of our daily routine to becoming a reo-only space. Currently we’re working on bath and shower time. During this time, I stocktake all the common phrases we use, such as “time to wash your hair” or “here’s your towel,” and replace them with their te reo Māori translation. The goal is to consistency build up our confidence and application of these reo Māori phrases and kupu, so eventually bath time becomes a completely reo Māori space. Then we can move on to a new part of our routine, like the school run or getting ready for bed. Chunking out areas to focus our reo growth as a household helps us be intentional so we can apply the reo we’re learning, building momentum and making it challenging but fun with the kids. By our household learning as one, it also removes me as the parent from being their only touch point to learn and practise with and encourages them to kōrero Māori with each other.
Switching to te reo Māori media and waiata
Using platforms like Māori+ and Disney to watch the kid’s programmes and movies in te reo Māori has been another fun way to normalise the language at home. It provides an easy opportunity for kids to absorb the language, especially my pōtiki with his younger programmes that include a lot of catchy waiata. It’s amazing to see how quickly children pick up reo phrases from their favourite characters and movies. It’s awesome that they get to see themselves and their language represented in their favourite shows too!
Pukapuka and activities
At bedtime we love reading reo Māori children’s books. There are some great reo Māori pukapuka out there, even some like Dr Suess classics that have been translated, plus we are lucky to get pukapuka from kura in reo Māori. What’s great about reading children’s books in reo Māori is that if you’re not familiar or understanding all the reo, you can work out a lot from the pictures and start connecting them to the new kupu. We also love to do kupu o te rā/wiki, word of the day/week, and make this fun with ‘quiz nights or pop quizzes in the car, and I always have stickers on hand to give out which they love.
Get creative with resources
There are not always reo Māori versions available to incorporate everything you would like to, or you may not want to spend money on resources all the time. I love getting creative, and for my youngest son who is learning his first words, I wanted to create some reo Māori flashcards. I used Canva and simply selected a flash card template, replacing the English words with reo Māori ones. The cards were common first words like whare (house), kuri (dog), and kai (food). It’s a simple yet effective way to introduce reo, and I also printed the flashcards as one big chart for a poster from his wall too.
Our approach for our whānau when growing our reo Māori has been to make it as fun, natural, and achievable as possible. We have started with small steps that we continue to grow momentum and confidence with- “He iti hoki te mokoroa nāna i kakati te kahikatea, the mokoroa (grub) may be small, but it cuts through the Kahikatea (whitepine)”. The key is in consistency and those small initiatives we take in our reo haerenga that add up to have a meaningful impact.