As part of our Arts focus for terms 3 and 4, a group of children across the school are learning about harakeke weaving. 

On Wednesday 7 September the weaving group went to Ferrymead to harvest some harakeke with Toni Rowe.

Our plan is to make four mats, one for each of the learning spaces: Harakeke, Kōwhai, Raupō and Totara.

In our first session we learnt a lot of the basic rules in harvesting harakeke. They are you have to do a karakia which is a Māori prayer you do before harvesting harakeke to Tāne Mahuta.   Once you have done the karakia you have to cut the harakeke.

You have to cut the harakeke on an angle so the harakeke doesn't grow back in a cup shape and store the water and rot.

You also have to make sure you don’t cut the parents or the baby of the harakeke or the plant won’t grow back.

So they are the basics in harvesting harakeke, thanks for reading. 

by Tashi, Apera and Isaac.