Matariki celabration

Every year in June there is A Matariki celebration.  A Matariki celebration is when Māori and other people celebrate the seven sisters or the seven stars.  Matariki is also when Māori people do the haka powhiri and sing and dance and talk.  Also it is when we share things that are māori like knuckle bones and other things.  All the classes in our school made or did something special for it .  Also it is when we share things that are māori .

On Wednesday my class were making manu (kite) for matariki.

When we were going to start our manu our teacher put us with buddies and my buddy was Va’atino.

After  we went outside of  our school  gate to get some toe toes for our manu .   Before we were going to cut the toe-toe  we said the karakia. The karakia is when we respect the māori culture and it is when we begin the day.   Also we respected the tikanga and it is why we do what we do.

Then after that we started to measure how long the toe-toe was and it was 120cm long so we had to cut the toe-toe into 3 pieces so we did 1/3 of 120 but that was to hard so we took away the 0 from the 2 and did 12 divided by 3 =4 then we added the 0 on to the 4 and that = 40 so we did 40 cm on the toe-toe and put some colour on to the spot where  the 40 was then we catted it.  And the people who helped us  was Eraia and Mya .

After our teacher said that we needed some materials so we got the materials that she told us to get and this is what we got: pencil,ruler,wool,miss Hills glue gun,toe toes.

After when we got all those materials we got to work first we had to put all 3 of our toe-toes on our table then we put one of the toe-toes and that one is the one that has the fluffy part on top of it and put the other 2 underneath. Then we got to choose which colour wool we wanted for our manu and me and my buddy Va’atino chose black then our teacher miss Hills told us to tie a tight knot on our manu.   

Next we had to get a big piece of flax and share it with another group and we shared it with Benjamin and then we had to cut it into pieces. After we had to put it on the toe-toes next me and my buddy Va’atino had to choose another wool but this time we didn’t just get 1 wool we got to choose 2 coloured wool lots of people in my class were choosing black and red but we chose white and black.

After that we had to put both our wool together and crisis cross on our manu but first we had to  make sure that it was on top of the flax  and that we were crisis crossing in the middle toe-toe first.     Then when we were finished we had to tie the wool together just how we tie our shoe lace.  Then we did the same thing on the other toe-toes.

When we were finished Miss Hills drawed a triangle in our tē reo books then we drawed a design my design was good and so was Va’atino’s but we both chose he's one then Miss Hills gave us a black pieces of paper that was shaped as a triangle then Va’atino had to draw it then we both coloured it in.  after we had to use the glue gun to stick the drawing on our manu.  Then after that we had to take it to the hall for the Matariki celebration.

This is a photo of the matariki celebration in the hall.    when I came back to school it was dark  and was going to go in the hall there was a big line and when I mean big I mean really big then the line became shorter and shorter and when me and my sister Jabeen went in there were lots of people.  We had to sit down or stand up and say the karakia then matoa Tod had to say something and then we got to explore the place.

There were too many people that I nearly lost my sister but I called her name and she came back.  First we went to the reflection walk and we wrote our grandma who past away also we wrote our grandpa who passed away.  Then we went to where we made our kites I showed my sister how to make it.  

Then we went to the blowing rocks or shells.  Me and my sister tried to blow the shell but we couldn’t do it then the kapa haka people had to perform and I saw my other sister Warda she was really good.   After that we had to go back home and whaea becks  dropped us back home then at home I told my mum I also told my mum about when my sister Warda did the kapa haka performence.