The earthquakes and tsunami scare that we had recently has provided us with awonderful opportunity to learn a little bit more about our Māori legends,investigating these natural phenomena through a bicultural lens.
The children were full of discussions around the recent earthquakes and thepossibility of a 'big wave', so I set to work researching how I could explainthese in a simple and understandable way and 'Rūaumoko's walk' by RawiriAndrews, James Graham proved to be the perfect book.
Whata wonderful story that identifies Papatuanuku and Ranginui's unborn child! Rūaumoko, yet to be born, twists and turns inside his mother'stummy and it is his movements that causes the earths rumblings. Māorilegend says that Rūaumoko is responsible for all the stirrings beneath theearth, the rumblings of earthquakes, the molten hiss of volcanoes and theinevitable rolling change of seasons.
Thechildren were very confident in sharing their earthquake knowledge,confidently showing me how they could DROP, COVER & HOLD! What agreat opportunity to practice our earthquake drill!
Ourdiscussion naturally moved to how an earthquake can cause a 'big wave'(tsunami) and as always, we just had to test out our theories so we headedoutside to fill up the water trough and create some tsunami waves!
Someof our BestStart whānau live close to the ocean and already knew that if an earthquake was big and long then they should move to higher ground, up a hillor as far away from the sea as possible...just until it was safeand Rūaumoko is calm again.
Ilove how inquisitive our children are, how eager they are to learn, test outtheir working theories of the world and to share their cultural knowledge witheach other.
Weare truly a community of learners!