Articles

Kia Ora,

Celebrating Matariki has been a great opportunity for our little ones at Lollipops Pukekohe to learn the language and cultural traditions of the Māori culture.

We have been celebrating over the past few weeks with a number of fun and engaging learning experiences, which provided our tamariki the opportunity to learn about the Māori New Year and understanding what each of the 9 stars represent.

It has been a few weeks of rich learning for our tamariki where they learnt to sing the 9 stars of Matariki, understand each meaning through learning experiences, exploring their creativity through arts and craft’s activities that link to the 9 stars while participating in Māori cultural traditions such as weaving and working together to make our own soup.

We invited all our parents to celebrate with us where our tamariki put on a show singing songs and dancing for our parents and whānau. We were really grateful to have one of our tamariki’s whānau member come in and teach us weaving. She was able to pass her cultural knowledge onto our little ones and the rest of the team at Lollipops Pukekohe in a fun and interactive way.

The kaiako, tamariki and whānau at Lollipops Pukekohe had an amazing time celebrating Matariki, we were really blessed to have lots of whānau support through sharing ideas and working together.

At Lollipops Pukekohe we believe in embracing and respecting the bicultural heritage of New Zealand and other cultures. We aim to embrace whānau and community contribution and communication as these are valuable resources for us. Matariki is a great opportunity for us as teachers and team to contribute and communicate with whānau to build our tamariki’s cultural knowledge.

Connections to Te Whāriki:
Belonging - Mana whenua: connecting links with the family and wider world are affirmed and extended.
Contribution - Mana Tangata: there are equitable opportunities for learning, irrespective of ethnicity and or background.