Matariki Celebrations by Hannah of Room 3

Matariki Day Recap

Matariki Day!!!

Kia Ora blog readers and welcome back to my blog, today I will be recapping to you what we did at our Whole School's Matariki Day Celebration we do every year at Pt England School, first let me tell you what Matariki Day is all about.
Matariki celebrates and signals the beginning of Maori New Year, on that day seven stars appear in the sky, these stars are called the seven sisters.Their real names are called: Tupu-a-nuku, Tupu-a-rangi, Waiti, Waita, Waipunarangi, Ururangi and Matariki. Matariki is a big celebration of people, culture, language, spirituality and history, this celebration brings many family and friends together as one.

At our Matariki celebration at Pt England School we all were splitted into different groups, and they were Cooking, Arts and Craft, Sports and lastly Movie making (Entertainment). We were splitted into these 4 groups not only to have fun but learn the different ways we can express Matariki based on the activities we had. The group I was put into was Arts and Crafts which was actually cool because I like being creative in many ways. My highlight of Matariki was when we were drawing the patterns on our 7 stars and my table of friends I sat with were laughing and giggling when we got marker on our faces and our designs were very funny. My second highlight is learning more stuff about what Matariki is really about, I now have more knowledge of what it is.

In my opinion I think that NZ must celebrate this because if you are new to Matariki, you will learn what it is actually about and the interesting story behind it and this festive celebration will bring everyone together and celebrate Maori New 
Year. Have you celebrated MATARIKI DAY yet?

Go here to read more from Hannah of Room 3

Matariki Manaakitanga - it's a new year celebration!

This post is shared with by Zoe. She shares about our school celebration of Matariki. Our school mixed across levels to have a whole day to celebrate this important time of the year. Go here to read more from Zoe.

Last week on Friday we had a Matariki celebration. Matariki presents the 7 sisters or the 7 stars. In Matariki you will be able to see the 7 stars. They are so special. Matariki is all about spending time with your Whanau ( family ). It is important because it's the time of celebrating Maori new year.

The Maori legend talks about 7 starts that needed a role. A job, here are the 7 stars names
1. Matariki
2. Waitī
3. Waitā
4. Waipuna-ā-rangi
5. Tupu-ā-nuku
6.Tupu-ā-rangi
7. Ururangi,

My highlight from Friday was when Leylani and I baked the cupcakes and we learnt it so fast and made a lot of cupcakes. My other highlight was when we had to make the stars with the paper to decorate our tables. It was confusing at first and then I made more and I even made some during lunch on Friday. My biggest highlight was the whole day it was so fun, we had a lot of fun making the food and it was just a great time on Friday.

Should New Zealand celebrate this? Why?For me I think New Zealand should celebrate this because its a special thing to Maoris and even if we aren't Maoris we should celebrate it with them to get to know Maori culture more, as New Zealanders we should celebrate this it's about our land and people!

Little message to Mrs Tele'a: First I will like to thank Mrs Tele'a for preparing this for us we had a great time with you and I will also like to thank you for teaching me and Leylani to bake the cupcakes. Without your great idea we wouldn't had have the great time on Friday and I thank you for everything you did for us on Friday.