Making Takakau

Today we made takakau (Maori bread). It is a type of bread made with flour and water, although some groups used milk and baking powder too. We had to research and create a recipe before we began, and had Matua Midge help us to get te right consistency. We were all really happy with how our takakau turned out, and some of us will enter it in the competition tomorrow. It has been a fun week of eeling and baking :)

Making and setting Hinaki

This week we are having a tuna and takakau competition at school. We have learnt all about eels over the past few weeks, designed and made a hinaki in groups, and today we set them. We all think we will catch the biggest eel, but tomorrow will tell.

Manu Taratahi

Today Room 5 started creating our Manu Taratahi. We are learning how to use traditional materials (toetoe, harakeke and raupo) to construct our kites and also how to gather our materials respectfully. We have learnt a karakia to say before we harvest and know to never cut the rito (child) and awhi rito (parents) of the harakeke or raupo as this can harm the plant. We managed to put our frames together today and have found using harakeke as rope to be a little challenging. Next week we will be attaching the raupo, and are looking forward to seeing our manu taratahi come together.

SchoolKit - Get New Zealand Writing

Earlier in the term we sent off a package full of things that make us, our class and our community unique, and metaphors that described who we are. Today we received our package from South Wellington Intermediate School. We were very impressed with the awesome metaphors they wrote about themselves and the teachers at their school. Some were really funny! It was also very interesting reading the facts about them. They had to write the longest word they knew which just so happened to be the longest Maori word (a hill in Hawkes Bay) and we were impressed that Taylor knew the word and could say it perfectly without reading it! Next step it to explore their site and find out a bit more about them and their school. Thanks SWIS, SchoolKit and The Warehouse Stationary for the fun writing experience.

Here is the finished artwork from the Fly Our Wishes workshop last week. We had great fun creating outfits for our people. They were supposed to represent us in the future but some of us got a bit sidetracked in our designs and created cool outfits in a variety of styles. Thank you heaps to Bridgette and Jim for taking the time to come and work with us.

If you are in Kerikeri over the next week or so, go to the Turner Center and check out our work as well as many others.

Fly Our Wishes Workshop

Today we are lucky to have artists Bridgette and Jim (from Junk & Disordely at Rangiwahia Environmental Arts Center) here to work with Room 5 on some art projects that will be displayed at the Turner Center in Kerikeri for the Upsurge Festival. Watch this space for the finished pieces :)

Room 5 Noho Marae

On Monday 6th of March Room 5 had our Noho Marae (a stay over at school). We went to Ruapekapeka Pa to learn about the battle that took place there and to understand the significance of it; for many of us it is our maunga. When we arrived back at school we got to swim... for ages! We loved it! Before bed Matua David taught us the correct protocol for staying in a marae; keeping our beds tidy, not bringing school bags inside as they have had food in there, not to wrestle or run around the beds and not to sit on our pillows. We learnt a lot and had a fun time... although we were all very tired the next day!