Last week, Anthony from the Canterbury Museum visited Wharenui kura to talk to the Kōwhai classes.  Anthony talked about the history of New Zealand back around 800 years ago. He told us the story of Kupe (who is believed to be the first Polynesian to find NZ) and things that he used to navigate his way to find NZ. The tamariki had to go into small groups to build the things he needed and how he navigated his way to Aotearoa.  Here are the things that Kupe had on his journey to the new island that the students made: A canoe, rats for eating, birds, dried gourd used as water bottles. For navigating, he used: stars, the sun, birds, clouds, winds, and the ocean currents.

Here are some photos showing the Kōwhai Hub students and their creations:

During literacy, the tamariki have been learning about navigation and some legends about Kupe and Maui.  They made some great scratch creations depicting Kupe chasing the giant wheke (octopus).

In the next few weeks, we are looking at what floats and sinks in order to design and create our own waka to test.  Check out our photos to see the results!