'The Great Waka of Tama Rēreti' - Matariki Whānau Day

Our 2019 Matariki Whānau Day was a huge success, with each whānau group coming together to celebrate Te Ao Māori through the Arts.

Carl and Nik's whānau group (with fantastic support from Cloe!) watched and listened to some different versions of The Great Waka of Tama Rēreti.

We then got in to groups to create backgrounds and moving figures for a paper theatre.

With the help of Carl's height, we filmed our movie in just a few takes.

Later, we used GarageBand to record some background noises, such as the Taniwha, water and fire.

A special mention must go to Matilda, who did an exceptional job of narrating the story.

Check out our finished product below!

'How Maui Discovered Fire' -Matariki Whanau Groups Day

James and Nicola's Whanau groups (with Neil stepping in to great affect!) retold the tale of how Maui discovered fire, through the medium of puppets!

First we got into groups and retold the legend on paper

Then we got back together to share, before planning and discussing what we needed to make as a group. We talked: how we wanted to do it, what characters we needed to make, the settings for the scenes and the backing music!😎

We made sure that everybody played their part in creating the artwork for the show - as well as the telling of our story, whether on stage during the performance or recording the voice acting and narration. Some of our seniors even made the backing music, an original score 😉

         

Here's the audio by itself, perfect for bedtime

Matariki Creativity Celebration

We've begun to celebrate Matariki, Te Tau Hou Māori, The Māori New Year.

Some of us begun by creating some special star art to represent the different stars of Matariki. We've been learning a waiata that also has all the names of the Matariki star cluster: Waiti, Waita, Waipunarangi, Tupu-a nuku, Tupu-a-rangi, Ururangi and Matariki.

As  Matariki celebrates Te Tau Māori- the Māori new year- some of made a wish for the coming year. We use the character strengths of Love and Hope to wish for things to help our world become a better place. You can have a look at our beautiful art this week in Tautoru.

We also made some amazing models of waka to represent the wonderful stories that we've been learning about during Matariki. We worked hard and used our perseverance to make and decorate the models.

Here is one of the stories, The Great Waka of Tama Rereti.

A Day at the ASB

We had another fantastic day at the ASB on Monday. Tautoru really enjoy these days as we get to explore lots of different games and try out activities that are often new to us.



Dodgeball and Basketball were very popular. We have a number of students playing miniball this term and it was great to see these students share their knowledge and help others developing their skills. Lots of teamwork and kindness was on display!



Thanks to the parents that were able to help out for the day and check out seesaw posts for more picture of the students in action.

Worser Bay Orchestra at Assembly

Music enhances our Positive Emotions. Research shows that Music improves brain health and function. It makes you smarter, happier, and more productive. Listening is good, playing is better! When music enters our brains it triggers the pleasure centre that release dopamine (a neurotransmitter) and that makes you feel happy. Playing an instrument increases some gray matter volume in the brain and can improve brain function. 

Rhosyn: I play the ukulele in the orchestra. We practise on Thursday afternoons. It is fun hearing all of the different instruments at once. Practicing together has been fun because I am part of a group. I used perseverance and bravery to perform on stage. I have a sense of gratitude that I can be part of the performance.

Evie: It was fun to perform on stage. I play the violin. I have played since I was four years old. This shows my love of learning and how I have stuck with it! Thanks Kirsten, Vicky and Sarah for helping!

Edward: I play the saxophone, some people mistake it for a trumpet! I used zest in the orchestra performance at assembly. The audience looked really happy and some have said that they want to join now.

Emelie: While I played the guitar I stared at the audience while playing with frozen fingers. I used my bravery, perseverance and zest. I am proud of myself because I made some mistakes but kept going and not stopping.

Catching up with our buddies from the seniors

On Wednesday we caught up with our buddies from across the school. The seniors put on a Matariki Celebration, which kicked off with a few waiatas and then included Matariki games that they made up themselves along with Matariki Art and creations.

I am a Thinker- Finding problems and Thinking of Solutions.

Can we change the world with Maths and Writing?

We have been using statistics to find our favourite animals and also to find out how much plastic we bring to school.

Our favourite birds:

How much plastic is in our lunch boxes:

The link is that many animals are getting sick from all our plastic rubbish. We have been writing about what we think about it. The green highlighter means that we are checking our writing and using our writing goals: