Our kids in Tautoru have a natural curiosity for all types of machines and gadgets. They really love to get inside and understand how things work ! You can imagine their delight when we were escourted into the belly of the new city Library where they could have a first hand experience seeing and leanring about the state of the art library book sorting machine....
We started off on the mezzanine floor travelling down to the entrance where books are carefully deposited into a slot once they have been read. We watched in awe as the books lovingly travelled down a conveyer belt through the floor and into the room below.
With eyes wide and questions flying around, we saw the amazing machine that sorts the books using a tiny microchip. This room had a tray for every destination imaginable. At the end of the second conveyor belt with the trolley of mystery. This was for books that did not belong to any council library. It was for the books that are swept up in the chaos and rush of getting those lovely books back on time !!! There were buttons and lights galore and so many little engineers with wonderings.
Next stop was the underground carpark. We were able to see the earthquake pillars that we learnt were buried 40 metres underground to reach bedrock. These amazing seismic pillars will be what helps this beautiful building withstand an earthquake.
Our second leg of the City journey was to Wharewaka to complete our second walking tour with Kura Ahurea. We were able to recap our prior learning about the waka taua and the Atua. We could really exercise our storytelling and knowledge from our Term 1 haerenga !!
Miles talked to us about how he remembered the eyes of the waka and how karakia travelled through the eyes and down each side of the waka protecting the toa going to war. On the side of the waka we could see the raukura from the albatross and we could explore the carvings of different atua.
This time we also went on to the bride that connects the Whairepo lagoon to the other side. We learnt about the wooden carvings and the signficance of the creatures depicted on the bridge. Ngake and Whataitai are represented on this bridge. Paris talked to us about the significance of the Albatross as a messenger and symbol of peace. This is really important to Taranaki Iwi both in Taranaki and Te Whanganui a Tara.
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