Session 1 · TRACE: Time & Place
Push, pull and the suitcase
- 10 minHook: 'You have one suitcase and a week to leave. What goes in?' Pack a paper suitcase with five things. Share why.
- 20 minPush and pull sort (Activity: 'Push and pull'): sort story cards into push factors (reasons to leave) and pull factors (reasons to choose a place). Add a third pile: forced moves, where people have no choice.
- 15 minWords that move: immigration, emigration, internal migration, rural–urban migration, refugee, asylum seeker. Match each to a card.
- 5 minExit card: one push and one pull factor from a move someone you know made (or any move you can imagine).
Session 2 · TRACE: Time & Place
Waves of arrival
- 10 minThe first arrivals: Polynesian voyagers who reached Aotearoa about 800 years ago, guided by stars, currents and birds. Every later arrival came to land that was already home to Māori.
- 25 minFlow map (Activity: 'Arrows to Aotearoa'): on a world map, draw arrows for the main waves: British and Irish settlers from the 1840s, Chinese goldminers from 1866, Indian arrivals from the 1890s, post-war British and Dutch assisted migrants, Pacific migration from the 1950s, and Asian migration since the late 1980s. Arrow thickness shows roughly how many people.
- 10 minStart the class base map of your neighbourhood. Mark places that hint at migration: churches, temples, shops, street names, marae.
- 5 minWhat does the flow map show well, and what does it hide? (People's reasons, return journeys, feelings.)
Getting started
Use picture story cards and a world map with the countries already labelled.
Stretch
Find out how many people living in your region were born overseas at the last census, and which countries were most common.
Checkpoint
You can explain push, pull and forced migration with examples, and your flow map shows at least five waves of arrival.
Activities for this week
- Push and pull: Why do people leave one place and choose another?
- Arrows to Aotearoa: Where have New Zealand's people come from, and when?
Useful this week
- History of immigration ↗ The full story of who came to New Zealand, when and why, from the first voyagers to today.
- Assisted immigration revives: 1946 to 1975 ↗ How the Assisted Passage and Dutch schemes brought post-war migrants.
- Pacific migrations ↗ How Polynesian voyagers explored the Pacific and settled Aotearoa, the first great migration.