Samoa

Here is how to plan a Samoa theme for a day of adventure with your kids.

Somoan Dress

We got super lucky with Samoa as a few years ago my sister had put on a children’s production of South Pacific and my mum had made lots of costumes. It was a bleak and rainy day and so, not only did we have enough flowers and lava-lava to decorate us, but we had lots spare to decorate the room as well. I thought Freddie made a very splendid Samoan warrior and Penny absolutely loves dressing up!

Weaving

This was Freddie’s favourite part of the day. I had bought a weaving kit from Baker Ross during lock-down and having seen the Samoan ‘ie toga mats which are culturally very important in Samoa – this seemed liked the perfect craft on a rainy day! Penny worked really hard on her weaving and Freddie was in charge of the sticking. Definitely a great activity!

PanI Popo

I always like to try to recreate a cultural dish on these pretend visits and this recipe for sweet coconut bread seemed a perfect one to try! It was pretty foolproof but I did have to make the bread from scratch (rather than using ready made dough which isn’t available in the UK) so it did take the whole day to make on and off. It was really good though (and I found out later perfect for a Samoa theme with kids) – Mark and I both ate far too much of it and felt a bit sick. Penny liked it too, but Freddie who is going through a super picky phase thought it was ‘disgusting’. It wasn’t!

Moana

Although Moana is a combination of lots of the islands of the South Pacific and not just Samoa, it was the perfect movie to watch on our Samoa day. One of our favourite songs in the movie actually uses the Samoan language in it and it was a brilliant way of giving our very little kids a feel for the place we were pretending to visit.

coconuts

We are still in quarantine after visiting Spain, but granddad kindly bought us a coconut which he found in Tesco. The kids took it in turns to smash it and then I ate the inside as neither of them actually liked it! It reminded me of school fairs when I was little and always bringing a coconut home with me for us to smash.

kilikiti

Kilikiti is a type of Samoan cricket which Mark knew all about as he had Samoan friends in New Zealand. I’ll be honest, with a 3 year old and a 7 year old no-one really knew what the rules were or what they were doing but it was a good excuse to get outside in between two big rain clouds and both kids really enjoyed it. If you want to play a more authentic version, you can find out all about it here.

siva Samoa

Samoa has some pretty awesome dance traditions and we found a really good YouTube instructional video telling us how to recreate the ‘Siva Samoa’. What was interesting was that in Samoa they dance all about their day – so you wake up and put on clothes and make up etc but all while being rhythmic and making beautiful shapes with your arms. I will look carefully at the Samoan dances I see now, to see if I can understand the story they are telling.

Talking to friends

Growing up, Mark’s best friend was half Samoan and was kind enough to send us a video of his mum and sister teaching us about the language and culture of the islands. It was nice for Penny and Freddie to experience the country in such a personal way and I was really pleased when they spoke about kilikiti and pani popo as it made me feel like I had done a decent job with my research (I am always worried about offending people!).

Our Samoa theme with kids was a massive surprise for me! We are stuck in quarantine and after a great day in pretend Vietnam which I had spent ages planning, Samoa was a bit of a last minute visit. Despite that, it was a definite family favourite – to the extent that I asked Mark to find out whether, with his New Zealand citizenship, we can live there!