Celebrating Matariki and Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence Day; Gabrielle and Wanwan's whanau group

We had a very enjoyable day working with everyone. A real highlight was Stan joining us, sponsored by Asia New Zealand, who introduced the children to Chinese painting. He showed them how to paint pandas and birds with a brush and black ink, adding more detail as appropriate.

We also talked about, and appreciated, what people and things were special to us. For many it was pets, family or friends.

We found special leaves and shared what we found beautiful about them, then made our own pictures from groups of leaves. Some of us did a little yoga. We also made stars as collaborative origami pieces to celebrate Matariki. We also had a few student workshops run by people sharing a skill that they had some excellence in. To finish we learned a waiata about Matariki and some of us made videos about what we learned.

Thanks to our parent helpers and friends for sharing the day with us.

Matariki: Shona and john's Group

Matariki: Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence Day: John, Shona, Tori and Cloe's Group.
Today was a stunning day at Worser Bay School. Our group started the day by looking around to find objects of Beauty and Excellence that we could use to create a piece of nature art.

We then created a piece of art using the bits and pieces we had found.

We then took photos of our art and used the photos to create a "Hei Whakanui i a Matariki" card for our parents. We offered to help them in some way to show our appreciation of all they do for us.
We were lucky to have Hutana come and read us the story of "Te Reo Tioriori o Manu" (Manu's Magic Voice) in Maori. It reminded us how tricky is must be for people when they come to our school and don't speak any English.                                                                                                          

In amongst planting trees with our families, we spent time appreciating the Beauty and Excellence in our own playground and in other objects of nature from around our community. We collaborated to create mobiles, sand sculptures and teepees out of bamboo. We really do live in a very special part of the world.

Matariki: Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence Nic and Scott's Group

Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence Defined. Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman,the developers of the personal strengths classification, define the appreciation of beauty and goodness as “the ability to find, recognize, and take pleasure in the existence of goodness in the physical and social worlds.”

Today we had a focus on the character strength of Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence. We worked across the school in Whanau groups. 

Kyla (Solly's mum) worked with students to make Maro for Matariki.

We took photos of  things that we think are beautiful from around the school. We made these into a collage. You can see this next week at our Arts Celebration. Please make sure that you visit all of the spaces in the school to look at all of the wonderful learning that we have been doing.

We also created a piece of found material art inspired by Andy Goldsworthy.



We also loved the opportunity to work with the artist Stan Chan.

Matariki: An Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence - Susie, Chris and Gillian

This morning our wonderful bunch started off the day by wandering down to our magnificent Worser Bay beach. Along the way we admired and reflected on all the beautiful sights, sounds and smells that were all around us. We all agreed that we really are so lucky to be surrounded by all of this beauty.

 

 

After morning tea we got stuck into some collaborative art pieces. With a buddy, we made a 'Thankful Tree' and created some Matariki stars to hang on a massive mobile. Our Thankful Trees show all the things we are thankful for in our lives - we thought really hard about what we were thankful for. Each Matariki star was connected to either the land, sea, river/lake, forest or our families and aspirations. 

 

Our collaborative art pieces will be siplayed around the school next week during our Arts Celebration.

We were also super lucky to have Janet run a yoga workshop with us. The yoga helped us to tune into our bodies and thoughts and gave us a clear, calm mind heading into the afternoon.

Thank you to all those parents that helped us out today. We really enjoyed your company! We really are so grateful for all the sensational things surrounding us, at home and at school.