Kōtare and Ruru have been very lucky to work with Kōka Marlena over the past two weeks, creating their own piece of mahi toi | art to take home.

Kōtare have learned how to create a felted wool hanging that depicts their own maunga and awa. Using the wool and learning a whole range of processes, they made mahi toi that represents their pepeha. Some of the awa were darker, some wider and some braided to represent the uniqueness of each awa.

He mahi toi rerehua | such beautiful art works!

Ruru worked with clay to form their own taonga pūoro, ukutangi which when dried, they took home to play for their whānau, hopefully sharing the learning they were given too.

We are so grateful for the skills of Kōka Marlena as she works with these two akomanga to grow their understanding and develop their pūkenga mahi toi | artistic skills through te ao Māori kaupapa. This programme will continue to run for the rest of the term- we can't wait to see what else they are able to create!

Thanks to some arts funding from the Ministry of Education, we have been able to provide this learning for these ākonga as well as raranga with Whaea Lisa harding from Kāhu Collective, who is working within every akomanga of our kura over the next 6 weeks. Look out for the article about this next hail.