Loving Whales and the Fabulous Show!

Written by: Kirsty

The Kowhai children have loved our taniwha investigation and a natural extension was us introducing other stories, books and provocations that featured creatures that live in water. Over the past few weeks we have been inviting the children to extend their learning through group directed opportunities at our investigation times. We have noticed that the interest in whales has lead to more informal child lead play, collaboratively and individually, as the children have independently utilised the provocations and resources that were on hand.

We have a been reading and offering a range of related fiction and non-fiction books to the children, relaying the stories in a variety of different ways, often through songs or using props. A couple of favourites were Katie's books on the mythical legendary Loch Ness Monster. We have sourced numerous other books featuring whales, "The Whales on the Bus" being a good new find, everyone picking up the words to this new song very quickly.

The pandemic has seen many restrictions placed on us at Preschool and like everyone else around the country for well over two years, group gatherings, events and celebrations have had to repeatedly be cancelled. In addition, Preschool trips have been not been possible, so once restrictions were lifted, with a level of confidence not felt for a while, we jumped at the chance of booking tickets to see "The Whale Rider" show, as it tied in so nicely with the children's learning in the Kowhai Room. It was so lovely for us to be able to reintroduce this exciting educational experience and adventure into our learning programme for the children.

After much anticipation and many discussions, stories, and drawings of whales the Kowhai group of 14 children and 11 adults jumped on a big bus and made their way over the Harbour Bridge to the Pumphouse Theatre.

The bus ride was thrilling as the rain was pouring and the sky was foggy, we were all ‘happy as larry’ to be on our way to see the show!

We arrived at the Pumphouse Theatre and our lovely bus driver Hong let us stay in the bus while Katie went to get the tickets from the Box Office. While we waited on the bus Summer played one of our favourite audio books of “Mog the Cat”. After the book we made our way down the driveway towards the theatre, being extra careful not to slip and holding our grown-ups hand extra tight.

The “Whale Rider” show was based on the Witi Ihimaera book, written by Tim Bray. The story was about whānau (family) and tikanga (traditional Māori values). The poignant tale of foraging paths and self-belief was about a twelve year old Māori girl, Kahu whose ambition is to become the chief of the tribe. Her koro (grandfather), Apirana believes this role is reserved for males only. Kahu shows she is the only one who can recover the whale tooth and proves she is the best to become leader. Once Kahu becomes leader she promises “our people will keep going forward, all together, with all of our strength…”

We were absolutely blown away with how well the Kowhai children sat, absorbed in the show from start to finish, after the show we had a quick toilet stop and then straight onto the bus back to Preschool – enjoying a snack of Tiny Teddies on our journey home.

We hope you all enjoyed the trip as much as all your teachers did.