The Breakfast.-Sakora

In the morning, we came to school and had breakfast, which was pancakes with cream, banana, jam, and maple syrup.  It was so delicious, and then we also had a delightful hot chocolate. If we wanted something like pancakes and the toppings, we would have to say it in Māori. Pancakes in Māori is pankeke, and hot chocolate is tiakarete wera.  

What is Matariki?-Pippa

Matariki is a cluster of stars which has nine: The eldest is Pōhutukawa, then the youngest Hiwa-i-te-rangi, then finally the others in the order from second eldest to second youngest: Waiti, Waita, Ururangi, Waipunarangi, Tupu-a-rangi, Tupi-a-nuku. It usually comes in early June. The one you can see the best can predict the environment in the year to come. It is one of the brightest clusters in the sky. I think that it’s a very beautiful cluster because it’s nice that we carry on the tradition of this holiday. Matariki has been happening for hundreds of years now, and personally I think it’s so beautiful how our school honors our ancestors and others. Some other things I learnt were Matariki - the Eyes of the God: In pain at the separation of his parents, Tāwhirimātea gouged out his eyes and threw the pieces into the Milky Way galaxy. Matariki has been thought to mean either the 'eyes of god' (mata ariki) or 'little eyes' (mata riki). When Matariki happens, people like to make food for whānau and like to share stories. -Pippa

Mya- Today at Matariki, we had free breakfast with a hot chocolate drink! It was nice, but there was this one activity that stood out to me, weaving. It was stressful but calming to pull the thick paper strings. I felt like a grandma knitting here, but pulling threads through, gluing together felt like a puzzle being solved, pieces fit tidily and easily. Chatting with friends, neatly pulling it together, and making sure it was all tidied and secure was a relief. We also learned stories, but back to it, we had 2 coloured bags cut into strips, but it was glued tightly together, squished flat like pancakes, colourful and pretty. I think star weaving was the best though, we had circle-shaped cards with 12 cuts on the sides, basically you would follow along the lines straight and after weaving a line you could move onto the next, at the start both sides were pretty, over time the back started getting pretty messy……But the front was still as beautiful, I swapped colours because I was able to, and it was so pretty! The sad thing is that if you do it too much, it gets thick, and your card gets pulled.