Voyages and Navigation

Long ago, our tupuna, our ancestors, voyaged across the oceans in search of a better life. These explorers came from all over the world and found paradise in a lLand named Aotearoa, New Zealand. This unit explores the journeys and explorations of those who came before.

Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua:

I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past

Focus questions and statements:

  • Who are my ancestors, my tupuna, and where did they come from?

  • When did people first arrive in New Zealand?

  • Why did people come to New Zealand? What did people do when they got here?

  • What was the voyage like for those who travelled?

  • How did Māori people respond when Europeans arrived?

  • How was law and order kept once people arrived in New Zealand?

  • Why was a treaty signed?

Learning Intentions

We are learning about early voyagers to to Aotearoa, New Zealand, and how they navigated their way.

In this inquiry we are learning to...

  • use prior knowledge to identify what we already know about how early peoples travelled to New Zealand

  • find information about early Māori, Pasifika and European voyages, and how they navigated they way to New Zealand

  • summarise stories and information in our own words

  • read and explore a variety of accounts through a variety of text types

  • synthesise information from a variety of sources

  • make inferences about the different ways people experienced voyage, change and arriving in a new land

  • compare and contrast the different experiences of Māori, Pasifika and European voyages and arrivals

  • choose which stories and experiences we are connected to

  • combine our new learning to create a narrative which describes the possible journey one of our own ancestors or tupuna may have made to New Zealand.

Success Criteria


We will know we have been successful when ...

  • find information about early Māori, Pasifika and European voyages to New Zealand, and how they navigated

  • read and explore a variety of text types and media, and synthesis information from these different sources

  • compare and contrast the different experiences of Māori, Pasifika and European voyages

  • we can find and synthesize information on a topic

  • we can summarise the texts and videos we watch and read

  • we can discuss and ask questions about how our own ancestors and tupuna voyaged to New Zealand