Guardianship Begins

Unit: Kaitiaki: Guardians of Nature

Lesson 1 of 10: Introduction to Kaitiakitanga

Year Group: Year 6 (Ages 10-11)
Location: Glenholme Primary School, Rotorua
Class size: 30 students
Duration: 60 minutes

WALT (We Are Learning To)

Understand the Māori concept of kaitiakitanga (guardianship).
Explore the role of kaitiaki in caring for the environment.
Connect the idea of guardianship to our local Rotorua environment.

Success Criteria

Students will be able to:

Explain what kaitiakitanga means in their own words.
Identify ways that people, including themselves, can act as guardians (kaitiaki) of nature.
Collaborate to share ideas about protecting the environment locally.
Reflect on their role in caring for their immediate environment.

Links to the New Zealand Curriculum

Science Learning Area

Level 2 – Understanding about living things and their interdependence, and the importance of sustainability and conservation of habitats
Achievement Objective: Describe how living things are suited to their habitat and how they respond to environmental changes, both natural and human-induced. (NZC Science, Level 2)

Key Competencies

Participating and Contributing – Collaborating and contributing to group activities to deepen understanding.
Thinking – Exploring ideas about environment and guardianship critically and creatively.
Relating to Others – Respecting and embracing Māori concepts and collaborative learning.

Social Sciences Connection

Explore how people interact with their environment and their responsibilities as citizens (NZC Social Sciences, Level 2).
Recognise and value local Māori perspectives including kaitiakitanga as guardianship.

Learning Context and Teaching Considerations

Emphasise te ao Māori worldview, recognising kaitiakitanga as a deeply held cultural practice critical for conservation.
Use collaborative group work reflecting your teaching style to promote learning through discussion and shared knowledge.
Make the lesson relevant by referring to Rotorua’s unique ecology and environment.
Provide dyslexia-friendly reading materials and visual supports, such as infographics or simplified texts, to support all learners.
Use flexible groupings to support diverse learning needs, ensuring that students with differing abilities participate meaningfully.

Lesson Outline

Time	Activity	Description and Notes
10 mins	Warm-up and Prior Knowledge Share	Start with a circle time discussion: Ask students what they know about caring for the environment at home or school. Introduce the word kaitiakitanga and explore what they think it means. Use a simple definition such as "being a guardian or protector of nature". Use a visual (e.g., picture of a guardian with nature).
15 mins	Story and Concept Exploration	Read or listen to a short, dyslexia-friendly story or narrative about a local kaitiaki (guardian) or a Māori legend related to guardianship of nature. Use visuals, storytelling gestures, and props to support comprehension. Encourage questioning and discussion about the story's main ideas.
10 mins	Think-Pair-Share Activity	Provide students with Maori and English key terms: kaitiaki, taiao (environment), whenua (land), wai (water), mahinga kai (food gathering). In pairs, students discuss how these relate to guardianship and the environment around Rotorua. Circulate and support diverse learners with sentence starters or word banks.
15 mins	Collaborative Group Task: Building Our Kaitiaki Role	Divide class into small groups of 4-5 students. Each group creates a poster or a digital slide showing: "How we can be kaitiaki in our school/local environment." Encourage creativity — drawings, sentences, keywords. Provide choice for groups to present verbally or by showing their poster/images to cater to learning preferences.
5 mins	Group Presentations & Reflection	Groups share their posters/slides with the class. Reflect on shared ideas and highlight common themes: respect, care, responsibility. Summarise by connecting back to kaitiakitanga as a cultural and environmental guardianship role.
5 mins	Plenary and Homework	Individual quick-write or drawing: "Today I learnt that being a kaitiaki means..." Provide differentiated templates for advanced writers and dyslexic-friendly formats. Encourage students to observe their home or school environment before next lesson to spot ways they can act as kaitiaki.

Differentiation Strategies

For Diverse Learners:
- Provide visual supports (pictures, diagrams) with key vocabulary.
- Use explicit modelling and sentence starters for speaking/writing tasks.
- Allow alternative ways to respond: drawing, oral presentation, paired discussion.
- Flexible grouping that mixes abilities with peer support for scaffolding.
- Dyslexia-friendly text in stories and written materials: large font, clear spacing, simple sentences.
Extension for Advanced Learners:
- Research traditional Māori stories or local iwi (tribe) approaches to kaitiakitanga and prepare a short presentation or creative poem.
- Role-play scenarios where they enact being kaitiaki in different environments, including urban and natural settings.

Resources Needed

Dyslexia-friendly story about kaitiakitanga or a local guardian story (can be adapted).
Visual aids: pictures of local environment, Māori key terms with images.
Poster paper, art materials, or digital devices for group work.
Vocabulary cards with kaitiakitanga concepts in te reo Māori and English.
Sentence starters and differentiated writing templates.

Assessment Opportunities

Observe discussion contributions and collaboration in pairs and groups.
Check understanding during poster creation through student explanations and questioning.
Review the final quick-write or drawing for comprehension of the kaitiaki concept and personal connection.
Provide verbal feedback praising accurate use of new vocabulary and ideas, reinforcing their growing understanding of guardianship.

This lesson provides a culturally responsive foundation rooted in New Zealand's curriculum and supports your collaborative teaching style at Glenholme Primary School. The local context of Rotorua's environment and Māori worldviews enrich the learning and connect students meaningfully to their place and heritage.

If you want, I can assist in designing materials such as dyslexia-friendly reading texts or visual vocabulary cards for this lesson. Would you like me to prepare those next?

Teaching Instructions