Matariki Celebration 2018

 Matariki 2018 saw us celebrating at Kaingaroa School. What an incredible day! We started our day with a small whakatau where two of my students shared their whakapapa with the whole school and opened our day. We split the entire school into six groups, named after the Matariki cluster, where they rotated around different activities. It was so great having all the staff on board. Some classes made fried bread, while others had string games, making 3D stars and origami, playing ki-o-rahi and tapu ae.

We had the most amazing shared lunch and fed the entire school, whanau and staff, with left overs! Everyone was well fed and enjoyed a small break, where we then broke off into our classrooms and participated in inter-house activities, including basketball shooting, obstacle courses, relay races and hoola hoop competitions.

We had such an incredible day, and I even had a parent come and say thank you for all of my efforts. She said that she can see the changes our school are making towards tikanga and that her children are coming home absolutely glowing. She acknowledged and thanked me for doing this for our tamariki. I was absolutely blown away and really appreciated her telling me that. It was one of the highlights of my day!