Mar. 25, 2019

Contributed by Crystal Kua

Longtime early learning educator Marie Roberts pulls up photos of her classroom at St. Joseph Preschool in Hilo.

“It’s decorated and set up like an ahupua‘a,” said Roberts, the preschool’s director and head teacher, as she sat in a workshop that introduced more than a dozen early learning kumu to Ka Nohona Ahupua‘a, an interactive online curriculum based on the ahupua‘a that was originally developed for kumu at Nā Kula Kamali‘i ‘o Kamehameha.

Roberts said she is grateful that Kamehameha Schools is now sharing this curriculum with kumu outside of KS and that she’s also able to now align the new ahupua‘a curriculum with what’s already going on in her classroom.

“When an opportunity of ongoing education comes up, it’s wonderful to take advantage of it,” Roberts said. “It’s a blessing when someone offers it.”

Roberts was among 60 early learning educators from preschools across East Hawai‘i who attended a day of professional development workshops on the KS Hawai‘i campus as part of the East Hawai‘i Early Learning Consortium’s Second Conference – I Ola No Ke Kino, which translates to “nourishing the mind and soul with knowledge.”

Members of the consortium include Hawai‘i Community College, INPEACE, Joyland Preschool, Kamehameha Schools, PATCH and Partners In Development Foundation’s Tūtū and Me and Ka Pa‘alana programs.

KS East Hawai‘i Regional Director Kilohana Hirano said the conference came about as a way to offer accessible and affordable quality professional development to early learning teachers.

“There are limited opportunities for professional development in East Hawai‘i for early learning educators,” Hirano said. “As part of the consortium, we are working with the early education community to find ways to open up more opportunities for kumu to broaden their teaching horizons as well as respond to requests for more culturally-based curriculum. All this can only help to better prepare preschoolers for kindergarten.”

Some of the innovative workshops presented included:

• Ka Lupe Nui – Kumu created kites as a tool to teach keiki an understanding of the natural environment.
• Ka Nohona Ahupua‘a – Kumu and keiki learn about life in the ahupua‘a in early Hawai‘i as gain an understanding of the importance of taking care of all the resources that come with it.
• ‘A ‘ohe pau ka ‘ike i ka hālau ho‘okahi (All knowledge is not taught in the same school) – Cultural learning experiences utilizing natural and free resources that included lesson plans on using pōhaku to pound ‘uala to make kō‘elepālau (sweet potato pudding) or to create ʻiliʻili castanets to help little fingers hold on to pebbles to learn an ʻiliʻili hula.