Ngā Kiri Kāpia by J. Wiremu Kane is a historical fiction text that weaves personal kindness with national history to explore the lives of gum-digging families in Te Tai Tokerau in the early 1900s. Through the experiences of Heeni and Mikaere, the story follows two cousins who bring kaimoana to a family of young gum diggers working in difficult swamp conditions after their father is injured. The narrative reveals the hardship of gum digging while also highlighting generosity, friendship, and manaakitanga as the children share food and time with Petar and Leander’s whānau. The glowing piece of kāpia becomes a symbol of connection, respect, and understanding between families from different backgrounds. Gentle, evocative, and emotionally rich, the text supports students to understand history through lived experience and voice.

The text is ideal for integrated learning across literacy and social sciences, supporting inquiry into kindness, community, and everyday life in historical Aotearoa New Zealand.

This pack contains wide range of response activities including:

• A guided reading plan exploring key literacy elements including inference and deduction, language use, making connection and text organisation, along with key questioning to promote emotional intelligence, metacognition and compassionate inquiry. 
• An independent learning contract complete with explainer videos for activity clarity
  
• A wide range of response activities to support developing and embedding key literacy skills including sentence and word work, spelling, and cloze activities.