Vasega 3- Tainasoa

E te manatua le taimi na e feiloai ma se tainasoa?

No Fefe: E fiafia Carmine (2) i le tainasoa.... ae e leai ni ata o la'u tama o Tanifatea ana tasi ana vaai i tainasoa ae tagi "Ou te fia alu i le fale"

Talofa tamaiti ma matua,

Ua fai sina leva. Ia faamalie atu, na sa ova le pisi o lenei tagata vaivai i la'u ia galuga ma la'u ia fanau na le maua se taimi e fai le blog.

Sorry it's been a while folks. I hope many of you already know that it's often easier for me to put up quick updates from my phone on facebook so even where you're not seeing much activity on this blog something will be happening there so like the page! https://www.facebook.com/funsamoanforkids

 I've made an executive decision to skip the second part of our Vateatea class (I hope to update it at a later stage) and go straight to vasega 3 Tainasoa so I can catch up. Particularly given we have another vasega today at 4pm (meet at around 3pm at Rocket Park) :)

The whole idea behind our classes is to make learning both fun and accessible and to provide an opportunity for the community of people who are committed to teaching their children Samoan to get their kids together in a setting that will appeal to kids. So one of the things we love doing is checking out what is on in Auckland (a great site is https://www.facebook.com/AKLforKids/ ) and then tailoring our Samoan lessons to that. So it was great to find that Auckland Council were doing Dinosaur in the Gardens (this is running until January and comes highly recommended by me- http://www.aucklandbotanicgardens.co.nz/whats-on/events/dinosaurs-in-the-gardens/ ). This gave us a chance to do the ever popular topic among children of all ages Tainasoa.

Now the only issue with this topic is that there are really limited Samoan books and ready resources on Tainasoa in Samoan (somewhat surprising given that my children have well over 40 books about dinosaurs (fiction and non-fiction) in English (ok that is a lot of dinosaur books but we love books and dinosaurs).

A study in contrast: just a few of the many English books we have about Dinos vs the trusty laptop where we wrote our own resources on Tainasoa!
 

So of course we decided to make some resources.

I wrote a Lima Tainasoa which is based on the 5 little ducks song- "5 little ducks went out to play, over the hill and far away, mummy duck said quack, quack, quack, quack, but only 4 little ducks came back."

My version is

Lima  tainiasoa na o tafafao

i luga o le aega, ma o mamao

Na valaau latou tina ROA ROA ROA

Ae toe fo'i mai na o le fa  tainasoa.

Fa tainasoa na o tafafao

i luga o le aega, ma o mamao

Na valaau latou tina ROA ROA ROA

Ae toe fo'i mai na o le tolu tainasoa.

 Tolu tainiasoa na o tafafao

i luga o le aega, ma o mamao

Na valaau latou tina ROA ROA ROA

Ae toe fo'i mai na o le lua tainasoa.

Lua tainasoa na o tafafao

i luga o le aega, ma o mamao

Na valaau la tina ROA ROA ROA

Ae toe fo'i mai na o le tasi  tainasoa.

Tasi tainasoa na alu tafao

i luga o le aega, ma alu mamao

Na valaau lana tina ROA ROA ROA

AUE! Ua le'i toe fo'i mai se tainasoa.

 

Na faanoanoa le tina tainasoa

Ua le'i toe foi mai lana fanau

Na alu i luga o le aega ma toe vaalaau.

Na valaau atu ROA ROA ROA

Ae fo'i mai uma le lima tainasoa.

We are happy to send free pdf resources with pictures (sourced from the internet) to others who are keen to teach their kids Samoan.  If you are interested in this please like the facebook page and get in touch by emailing me on sisiliaeteuati@gmail.com.

I am off now as I have to take my kids to the Santa parade in town because there is no rest for the wicked particularly wicked fun parents (bad pun I know)

I will try to write a second part of this Tainasoa class later.

The last thing I want to leave you with though is the importance of play.  The kids favourite thing by far in this class was playing "Ua ta le fia tainasoa?" which we modelled on "What''s the time Mister Wolf."

The kids stood far away from the "Tainasoa" and shouted "Ua ta le fia tainasoa" and the tainasoa (me at first) replied "Ua ta le lima (5)" and then the kids would take 5 steps forward. We kept on doing this until the kids looked close... and then the tainasoa would say "O le taimi o le ai"....  and chase them until they took over someone who would be the next Tainasoa.

This gives you an idea of how you can change simple games into Samoan to reenforce and encourage Samoan. To extend and confirm learning this week (and help teach the time) I am asking my kids and encouuraging them to ask me "ua ta le fia?" and saying "O le lima tele la e faasino atu i le sefulu lua, o le lima laititi la e faasino atu i le valu, o le uiga la.... (and hope they sing out) ua ta le valu"