Matariki Celebration

Manu Tukutuku

Every year the māori people celebrate Matariki.  Matariki is the celebration of the seven stars or the seven sisters and is their new year.  Every class has

made something for our celebration of Matariki, some have even budded up.

My class made kites for the celebration,Our teacher Miss Hills had got some raupō (a type of flax) in the weekend for us.  We all got toetoe (a stiff plant) for our groups from the hill across the road, though my buddy Malcolm could not come for he was sick.  Before we could do any of that we had to do we said a karakia.  We have to do this so we promise that we will respect the plants.  It is also what the māori did when they took the harakeke and other plants from the forest and other places.  We always do this because it is tikanga, why we do what we do.  

After we came back to class we had to make our kites.  I had to measure the toetoe so my teacher can cut it into three equal parts for the sides of my manu tukutuku.  When I measured my toetoe it was a hundred and ten centimetres.  Before Miss Hills had cut it I had to make a strategy for how I got the measurement so I can make a video of my strategy.  My strategy was pretty hard to make because I had to go into decimals.  I had to use some help from Havana, a girl who also did not have a buddy on Tuesday.  It was pretty hard for me and her to make a strategy, so we did it with some help.  We tried to do it before lunch time but we didn’t have time.  So I did it in lunch time, the only problem was that we had at least ten interruptions.  Miss Hill’s had got really frustrated, but we got through it.  After Miss Hill’s had cut the toetoe I was with Patrick, he had helped me with the weaving stage.  We used wool instead of harakeke.  I broke the harakeke into strips for my manu (kite) and cut one meter of wool for each colour.  I had to do this by my own because Patrick wanted to do his manu.  I had put harakeke on the toetoe and then weaved the wool on the harakeke and the toetoe. I had used black and white in the middle, and on the sides was red and black. My design was waves and white backround on the edge, with a circle in the middle. I had hot glue gunned the manu then I took a picture of me and my manu. Then it wrecked, I tried to fix it then I put it in the hall for our celebration. Here is my maths video for my toetoe, I hope you like it.