Moana With Her Oar on the Beach coloring page

About this coloring page

Moana with her oar captures a girl who dreams of sailing past the reef around her island. The 2016 Disney movie draws on the peoples of Polynesia, who explored and settled islands scattered across a vast stretch of the Pacific over many centuries.

Those sailors had no compasses or printed charts. Instead, they practiced wayfinding. Navigators memorized where stars rose and set along the horizon, read the direction of ocean swells and felt how the waves changed near land. They also watched seabirds, which head back toward islands at dusk to rest.

They sailed in large double hulled canoes with sails and paddles, sturdy enough for very long voyages. Onboard they carried plants, seeds and animals so they could start new lives on distant islands.

In the movie, Moana learns that her ancestors were great voyagers and sets out to bring that tradition back. In real life, people across the Pacific are doing the same thing, building traditional canoes and teaching young sailors to navigate without modern instruments so that this ancient knowledge is not lost. Each successful voyage is a living link to the people who first reached these islands.

• moana
• disney princess
• ocean
• beach
• polynesia