E Hoʻohui Me Mākou! Connect With Us!
Below are some of our past activities focused on Pāʻani & Aʻo:
2023 was the first year of a Keiki Korner at ‘Aha Mele. It went very well and we received a ton of positive feedback from keiki, mākua, and ‘ohana. At the Keiki Korner, we had the two activities:Tissue-Paper Pua Making and Wehi Mele Decorating.
For the Tissue-Paper Pua Making, we had the keiki make tissue paper flowers with green pipe cleaners and multi-color tissue paper cut to be about half-page length. Aunty Sharon took the lead on this activity and the keiki had so much fun making pua with her. She also was able to teach them how to cut the paper in different ways to make different kinds of flowers and taught them how to tie the flowers in different ways to make pua for your hair or wrists.
For the Wehi Mele Doreating, we had keiki decorate the Wehi Mele pieces that Kamalei designed, printed on cardstock, and cut out. We had paint pens, tissue paper, glue, ribbon, and crayons to use to decorate them. Kamalei also made a handout for ‘Ohana to take home that described why mele is important to our culture and language and also had descriptions, links to the lyrics in ‘Olelo and English, and links to a YouTube video for each mele.
For our 2023 Seattle Live Aloha Hawaiian Cultural Festival , we helped out at the Keiki Korner. There were hana (activities) centered around that year’s theme of “E Mālama I Ke Kino”.
For the first activity, we made Nā Kiʻi Pepa (Paper Dolls) and focused on naming the body parts in 'Ōlelo Hawai'i. The other activity focused on Kanu i Nā ‘Ai (Planting Food) with 'uala.