Matariki ...

This week we have been celebrating Matariki at school.   

Matariki is our Aotearoa Pacific New Year. It takes its name from the seven star constellation which reappears over the horizon in late May. In Western astronomy this constellation is called The Pleiades. 

As well as marking the start of a new year, Matariki also signals other new beginnings.

We read the book "Matariki" by Waitangi Teepa and found out how people celebrate Matariki.  We also watched a couple of the many clips on YouTube portraying the different stories about Matariki.

This one tells the story of the Seven Stars of Matariki...

This one tells the Māori legend of how the seven stars of Matariki came to be...

Traditionally, Matariki was the time to plant trees, prepare the land for planting crops and renew associations with whānau. The New Year is also a good time to reflect on your place in the world, to re-awaken old skills or try out new ones, and to set new goals.

Matariki is a time for making things.  This week we made a class korowāi.  A korowāi is a Māori cloak, woven with feathers.  We looked at different examples of traditional korowāi on the internet, and then made our own out of paper. 

First we used pastels to make vivid patterns and blocks of colour on our feathers, then we carefully cut them out.  Mrs Pescini helped to assemble them so that they made a cloak. We are very proud of our korowāi.  It is displayed on our classroom wall.

We also wrote stories about Matariki. Here are a few for you to enjoy.

At Matariki I am going to fly my kite. It is going to be fun.  ~ By Luka

At Matariki people follow the stars to get home.  There are seven stars.  ~ By Georgia

Matariki is stars. We can see some stars.  I like stars.  ~ By Dehan

Matariki is a time to make kites. You can grow cabbages or crops too.  ~ By Violet

Matariki is a time for flying kites. They fly really high up in the sky.  ~ By Tanishka

At Matariki people do fantastic stories. They have stars in the Matariki.  ~ By Sophia

Click here to listen to a beautiful waiata about Matariki.

Ngā Tamariki O Matariki

Waiti    Waita    Waipunarangi
Tupuanuku  Tupuarangi   Ururangi e

Koinei  ngā tamariki o Matariki      


(These are the children of Matariki)
Ngā whetū e pīataata i te rangi e   


(The bright stars that shine in the sky)
Ngā whetū e pīataata i te rangi e   


(The bright stars that shine in the sky)

Today for discovery, we continued to celebrate Matariki.  We have learnt that Matariki is a time for sharing, making things, watching the stars, preparing and sharing kai (food) and today we had a fabulous time doing all of these things...

Paper weaving...

Making tiki...

Patterns ... over, under, black, orange ...

More tiki...

Star fairy bread ... yummy kai

Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou (happy New Year) 

A Special Award ...

Our class was very surprised and proud to be presented with 'The Golden Spade' in our whole school assembly today.  This award is presented for 'amazing enviro efforts' ... and E7 got it.  

We've thoroughly enjoyed gardening  this last term - from researching the needs of a plant and planning our own garden space and later planting it.  We've kicked off Term 2 exploring the world of bugs and insects, and considering what ones are good (or not) for our plants.

The garden is starting to flourish and the seedlings we planted on the most part have taken well to their new position in our garden.  The seeds we sowed are also starting to come through as little seedlings.  Our bulbs are peeking through the surface of the soil and the strawberries are flowering intermittently.

We’ve introduced class jobs, and every day one of our classmates takes a turn to be ‘Gardener’.  This ensures the garden is kept well watered and free from weeds. 

Be sure to take a look next time you’re by our class...

Days at School ...

Every morning we count how many days we've been at school.  It's a great way to learn about 1:1 counting, place value, skip counting and talk about concepts like before, after etc.  Today one of the children in our class asked, "Have we got the days right? I think we've made a mistake because we didn't do it the other day."

We thought we were up to 80 days.  We asked Mrs Graham in E6 how many days they had counted, and they said 75 (but there was some confusion in their class too).  We put on our 'yellow thinking hats' and talked as a class about how we could work out what the correct number was and 'solve the problem'.  Sophia suggested we look on the calendar, Nicholas thought we could add all the days together, so we did.

We counted all the days in term 1 (twice to be sure) and left out all the weekends, public holidays and days off school.  Then we counted how many days we have been here in term 2.  Altogether we counted 84 days.  We know lots about 84 ...

We decided we'd better share what we'd discovered with E6.  How would we do it? Rory suggested we write them a letter, so we did.

We are pleased to know how many days we've been here.  It's important because when we get to 100 days (early in term 3), we have a special celebratory day at school.  Watch this space...

Getting bugged by all the rain ....

We've had so much rain we thought we would take advantage of a fine patch this afternoon and take a walk around the school.  We wanted to look for bugs and insects ... but were at serious risk of getting muddy-fied and discovered we could find a whole lot of bugs around the school without digging in gardens or looking up trees. Check it out, look what we found around the school ...

So many of our beautiful murals and mosaics, window displays and signage around the school are adorned with creepy critters.  Be on the look out next time you take a walk around Eastern Hutt ... 

Mad Hatter's Day...

On Friday we were invited to wear a crazy hat or whacky hair as a fundraiser for our talented school Dancesplash group.  Our school's act is based on 'Alice in Wonderland' (hence the Mad Hatter's Day) and we are really looking forward to seeing their performance next term.  Check us out in our fab hats...

A Change in Season ...

Over the last few weeks the weather here has changed considerably.  The children have started wearing gumboots and rain jackets to school, it is cold and we have the heater on in the classroom, and Cooper even made a snowman with early morning frost from his lawn.  

We have been talking about seasons and how they change throughout the year.  It was Autumn but now it is Winter.

Today for Discovery we worked together on some special seasonal crafts and creations....

We learnt how to do leaf rubbings.  It was pretty hard but we perservered and worked out how to best hold the crayon and push hard while we rubbed across the leaf and paper.  It is like magic how the leaves appear on the paper.  We think we're very clever...

We used our handprints and made Autumn leaves for our class tree.  We used colours that we could see on the trees outside like yellow, brown, red, orange and green.  We think they look like real leaves on the tree.

We used sparkly white playdough to make snowmen.  They glistened just like real snow does in the sunshine.  We put on our green thinking hats and got creative about what we could use for arms and legs and other body bits.  We shared our ideas and helped one another to make snowmen using pipe cleaners, straws, pompoms and paper cutouts...

We also did some clever paper craft and made snowflakes.  We took a square piece of paper and folded it several times - some into squares and some into triangles.  With the help of a friend who held the paper, we cut lots of little shapes out of it.  Carefully we unfolded the paper to reveal a Winter snowflake shape.  Just like real snowflakes, each one was unique.  Many children took theirs home but we have hung some in our window to enjoy their shape and the shadows they cast in the sunlight.

We loved discovering about the seasons today.  I wonder what we'll discover next week ...

A Puriri Moth - Pepetuna...

Mrs Diamond brought something very special into class today - a Puriri Moth (known in Maori as Pepetuna).  The Puriri Moth is New Zealand's largest and most colourful type of moth.

You can see some wonderful footage of the Puriri Moth and hear a beautiful song about them by clicking here.  Mrs Diamond found the dead moth on a bush walk one day.  She has carefully looked after it.  You can see the green colour on it's beautiful big wings.

Here is some information from the Department of Conservation about this special moth:

The bright green püriri moth is New Zealand’s largest moth with a wingspan of up to 15 cm. It is found only in the North Island. The moth, which does not have any mouthparts and therefore cannot eat, dies after about two days. It is active only during dusk and night when it must mate and lay eggs.

The püriri moth caterpillar spends much of its life living inside the trunk of a tree (for example püriri, putaputaweta, wineberry or lacebark). The small caterpillar burrows deep into the trunk where it feeds on the stem tissue of the tree. It stays here until it reaches about 10 cm long which can take up to five years. After it leaves the tree it forms a chrysalis and turns itself into a bright green moth.

The caterpillar is eaten by ruru (morepork), käkä and robin as well as cats and rats.

We read a wonderful book called Pepetuna, by Denise Whitmore.  We loved this story and it taught us so much about these unique and beautiful insects.

Buddy Bugs ...

Today Miss Purcell and her wonderful A7 students helped us to make some special insects ...

These were pretty tricky to make but it gave us a really good opportunity to examine their 'anatomy' close-up.  Praying Mantis' are insects ... they have 3 body parts (a head, thorax and abdomen), 2 feelers (antennae), compound eyes and 6 legs. They also have wings (but not all insects have wings).

You can find out more about the two special of these unique insects that live here in New Zealand, by clicking here.

Special Kinds of Insects ...

We now know that insects have 3 body parts (a head, thorax and abdomen), 2 antennae (feelers), compound eyes, wings (sometimes but not all the time), and six legs.  We had a wonderful opportunity today to observe these unique features up close when Sophia brought in a dead monarch butterfly from her Nana's garden for sharing news.  We used a magnifying glass to look at the beautiful insect.  We noticed there was fine 'fur' covering it's body, and it had little spikes on it's legs which we think might be to help it hold on when it lands on a leaf or plant.  Thank you for bringing in the butterfly for us to have a look at Sophia.

A Right Royal Time ...

On Monday we observed Queen's Birthday and had a day off school.  The children in our class were interested in why we got to have a day off ... especially when most people have to still go to work or school on their special day.  We spent some time over the week learning about the Queen and her relationship to our special country.  

What we knew about the Queen ...

We learnt that she has two birthdays, one in April and another officially observed in June.  We wrote stories about what we had learnt about the Queen, which we decided we wanted to send to her.  

After some research we found out ... 

Yesterday for shared writing, we penned a letter which Mrs Pescini printed and bound into a book with our stories to send her ...

We wonder whether we will get a reply from our special package ...

Today for Discovery we celebrated the Queen's Birthday in our own unique way.  We made special birthday cakes out of play dough ...

We coloured and wrote special birthday messages in cards ...

We made crowns and tiaras ...

We played 'Royals' ...

Queen Tanishka

Prince Mohit in his castle

King Alex

We had lots of fun learning about the Queen this week and hope she had a very happy birthday.  Fingers crossed we get a reply from our special parcel ... we'll keep you posted.

We love Discovery in E7.  It is a wonderful opportunity to get to know one another better, learning about each other's strengths and skills, sharing our experiences and knowledge not to mention resources and ideas.  I wonder what we'll 'Discover' next week?