Matariki signals Matahi o te tau (The New Year).

Kiwi tahi have been exploring and understanding the cluster of whetu (stars) that is known as Matariki.

We have explored the 3 main themes that Matariki reflects -

• Remembrance 

• Celebrating the present

• Looking to the future

Our learning started with learning the names and meanings of the 9 whetu. Our big buddies, Ruru Ono, collaborated with us to make a gigantic whetu (star) with all the names and visual images that are connected to each whetu (star).  

We were then ready to celebrate Matariki with our school hangi - Bill was ready to dig the hole, the food was ordered and then ‘He rangi ua’ - it was a rainy day! We will look forward to celebrating our school community with another hangi during Maori language week in September.

As part of our learning connected to our hangi we wrote instructions for Mr Armitage to follow - we learnt that when writing instructions you need to start with a ‘bossy’ word or a ‘verb’. Check out all our ‘bossy’ words that we put at the start of our instructions for Mr Armitage to follow.

Lastly, we started to look to the future, with some children from the Kiwi team being part of our blessing ceremony for our new classroom block. We sung ‘E tu Kahitkatea’ and our new classroom doors then opened for our community to view. We can’t wait to shift into our new rooms, play on our playground and enjoy the surrounding gardens and new play areas.