Journey of a Waka explains how the ancestors of Māori travelled across the Pacific Ocean from East Polynesia to Aotearoa more than seven hundred years ago. Using oral histories and archaeological evidence, the text describes how expert navigators planned their voyages, the supplies and people on board the waka hourua, and the natural signs they used to find land across the vast ocean.

This pack contains a range of response activities complete with activity explainer videos for exploring thinking skills and developing emotional understandings and compassionate inquiry including:

• Blooms Higher Order Thinking activities
• Book Club guide for deepening text discussion
• A range of activities to explore emotional understanding, compassionate inquiry, empathy development, vocabulary and developing skills for self and co-regulation.

English - Reading: Interpreting information from diagrams and visual text features, Identifying key ideas and supporting details in an informational text, Building vocabulary related to navigation, exploration, and migration, Integrating information from images and written text.

Social Sciences - Aotearoa New Zealand Histories: Polynesian migration to Aotearoa, The importance of waka in Māori history and culture, Traditional navigation methods using stars, winds, and ocean knowledge, The role of leadership and cooperation on long ocean voyages.

Keywords include: ancestors, arrival, East Polynesia, exploration, migration, navigation, ocean voyaging, Polynesia, stars, supplies, waka, waka hourua, wayfinding, Aotearoa, Pacific voyaging