Oceania and the Pacific Islands

All Around This World’s classroom and homeschool lessons about Oceania and the Pacific Islands for kids introduce your family to Pacific cultures through interactive fun . . .

Making music in Oceania and the Pacific Islands seems to be as natural as the burning hot sun, the beaming blue sky and storms that rise from the sea.

All Around This World Oceania and the Pacific Islands "Everywhere Map"

First a clarification. The term “Oceania” is rather fuzzy and one could use it in many ways (at least according to the Oceania definition on the take-with-a-grain-of-salt-but-usually-pretty-darned-reliable Wikipedia):

– as a blanket term for all the atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific (“ethnologically divided into the subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia”)
— to encompass the whole area between Asia and the Americas (including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago)
— with a narrow focus on Australia and its nearby islands
— as a synonym for either the Australasian ecozone or the Pacific ecozone (Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia apart either from New Zealand or from mainland New Guinea).

Actually, that wasn’t a clarification at all.

Anyway, in our classes we’ll use the term rather vaguely, then compound that vagueness by adding the equally vague term, “the Pacific Islands.” Together using those terms we will vaguely cover all the island nations in the region, starting on the island continent of Australia, venturing north and northeast to Melanesia (from the Greek: “black islands”), going further north an even further east to Micronesia (“small islands”), then further to the east, both north and south, where we sing, dance, chant and stomp all over Polynesia (“many islands”).

If you’re not in an All Around This World classroom but instead you’re following along at home, you can still enjoy our lessons about Oceania and the Pacific Islands for kids:

Australia: we follow our songlines deep into the bush as we go on a walkabout.

Papua New Guinea (Melanesia): we join the Huli Wigmen and emerge victorious in a traditional singsing.

Fiji (Melanesia): we dance sitting down and tell a tale with our hands.

New Caledonia (Melanesia): we swish our straw skirts as we dance the pilou.

Kiribati (Micronesia): we climb high into the coconut trees to cut toddy, singing loudly as we do.

Guam (Micronesia): we gorge on a big Guamanian buffet during a fiesta.

Tahiti (Polynesia): we let our hips do the talking as we dance an o’tea.

The Cook Islands (Polynesia): we become a church choir and sing miultipart harmony with ‘imene tuki.

Hawaii (Polynesia): we eat increasingly thick poi at a luau.

New Zealand (Polynesia): we end our Pacific tour with a ferocious, intimidating and thoroughly enjoyable haka.

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