Helping your children learn to count and use numbers is something that every parent should do, regardless of their background. This website provides some ideas of activities that you might like to try with your children to help them learn.
You might find other useful information and ideas in the TKI Pasifika community.
Make a maths kit for your family
Collect items that your family can use to practice their maths. Choose a special basket or box to keep your maths kit together. Use some Pasifika fabric or designs to decorate your kit.
For younger children the kit should include sets of items that they can put into groups and count.
- Shells, seeds, buttons or stones
- Feathers, small artificial flowers
- Sets of small toy animals, movie characters, cars or blocks
- A tape measure
For older children your kit could include
- Playing cards
- Plain paper, graph paper, pens, pencils
- Notebooks for score keeping
- Counters
- Dice
- A ruler or tape measure
Your family maths kit could also include a collection of maths games such as Uno, Connect 4, Battleship, Bingo, Ludo or backgammon and many more. If you make any of the activities from this website – keep the activity in a resealable plastic bag and add it to your family maths kit.
Make maths fun
Sometimes it will be useful to have a go at the activities on your own first before working with your child. When you are working on any activity with your children remember to wait long enough for a response, give a little hint to help them if they get stuck and give them lots of praise for having a go.
Make use of Pasifika languages
The table below gives the words for the numbers from one to ten in several Pasifika languages. You might like to make a book of numbers using more than one language. For many of the Pasifika versions, you are encouraged to use the languages you speak at home for your maths activities.
English | Cook Islands Māori | Fijian | Niuean | Samoan | Tokelauan | Tongan | |
1 | one | ta'i | dua | taha | tasi | tahi | taha |
2 | two | rua | rua | ua | lua | lua | ua |
3 | three | toru | tolu | tolu | tolu | tolu | tolu |
4 | four | ‘ā | va | fa | fa | fā | fā |
5 | five | rima | lima | lima | lima | lima | nima |
6 | six | ono | ono | ono | ono | ono | ono |
7 | seven | ‘itu | vitu | fitu | fitu | fitu | fitu |
8 | eight | varu | walu | valu | valu | valu | valu |
9 | nine | iva | ciwa | hiva | iva | iva | hiva |
10 | ten | nga‘uru | tini | hogofulu | sefulu | hefulu | hongofulu |