Culture Day

 Shared Lunch

In Room 9 we have been learning about different cultures. We had a terrific culture day and some delicious shared lunch. There were all different kinds of food from sweet sweets to crispy savouries. There were more sweets than savouries. That does not surprise me! At the shared lunch we had three crispy savouries to eat and had the choice to have seconds. Then we had three sweet sweets and had a choice to have seconds as well. Finally we went out to play and the greedy teachers took all the delicious food and placed them outside on some tables for us to help ourselves to leftovers.

OUR CULTURE DAY WAS TERRIFIC!!!!

WRITTEN BY KAYNE AND MATHEW

Some of the Culture Day art we did.

Hard at work.

Culture Day food

On Thursday 13^th of September Sacred Heart School had a shared lunch. First we had the table with like saverys and mutton-bird . Then we had the sweet table YAY with strawberrys with chocolate . And that was the part of culture day for us .

From Thamsyn  and Samantha

 

       JAZZ

As part of our culture unit for Inquiry we have been doing dance. Four girls have chosen to do Jazz. There was also rock and roll, hip hop and the whole class did a Greek Zumba dance. The girls had the hardest dance because they had no instructor and did all the choreography by themselves but thanks to Mrs Page the girls had a great dance and did the best they could.

 By Emma and Georgea    

Learning Cook Island dancing

 Our cloaks

In Room 9 we have been making colourful Maori cloaks (Kahu huruhuru). The cloak represents ourselves and what we value.

 First we had to fold up the piece of paper to make it a cloak shape. Next we had to colour the cloak with crayons and we made patterns. After that we had to paint it with black paint and make thick layers of paint. Later we had to get a nail and make koru patterns.  Then we had to get pictures of our favourite things and things that represent ourselves. Finally we put feathers on it. We had so much fun. We put them on our wall. There are thirty colourful cloaks.                                                              

  By Caelan and Samantha

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Cultural Differences and Similarities.

Differences we discovered between a Tangi and New Zealand Pakeha funerals we discovered from reading the Journal Story “Aunties Raw Fish” were:

Tangi!

You get welcomed with a powhiri. It is held on a Marae. The Maori language is spoken. You have to take your shoes off when you enter the wharenui. The coffin stays on the marae for three days. The more important the person is the higher up the hill they get buried. Tangi is short for tangi hanga. They sometimes tell jokes so that it’s not so depressing. After the burial they wash their hands and head. You wash your hands before you enter the cemetry or burial ground and when you leave. Everyone sleeps and eats at the Marae during the three days of the tangi.   

New Zealand Pakeha funeral!

Non-Maori funerals are usually spoken in English. People in a European funeral can just sit straight down. They are often held outside or in a church.  People keep their shoes on. They can stay for the ceremony; they don’t wash their hands and head, the people bury the body in a cemetery. They can have some musicians playing music and they also sing songs in memory of the person who died.

What is the same in both cultures for funerals!

We are saying goodbye to someone who died. Both have people. They can both have the coffin open at the funerals. Stories are told about the dead person. People share their memories about the person. People are sad. They sing. They share food. They pray.

By Jake and Erik!

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Against the Wind

Our Reading Group read a story Journal Story about a little girl going to New Zealand from Beijing. Her name was Ai Mei she was going to leave her Grandfather for the first time. Our group thought that her difficulties in coming to a new country were: speaking English, communicating with others, having to eat different kinds of foods and making new friends.

She definitely missed her Grandfather. It would also be hard to use a fork and knife rather than chop sticks.

The thing that was hardest was being so far away hard to stay away from her Grandfather.

 Thamsyn, Nellie and Lucy.

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      Our Culture Pizzas! 

Room 9 have been making Culture Pizzas and these are the questions we had to answer: What type of music do you like?  What type of art do you like?  Where do your ancestors come from?  What food do you like?  In your culture you celebrate?  Who is in your family?  What places are important to you?  What activities do you like to participate in? 

After we answered the questions on our own Culture Pizza we all sat in a circle and shared all our answers.  Everyone had lots of awesome answers.  Some of the answers were the same and lots of them were different too.  We did these Culture pizzas so we could see what own individual culture is. 

These are examples of our individual Culture Pizza. They are Monique’s and Mathew’s.

Room 9’s Culture Pizza

In Room 9 we photocopied a culture pizza and resized it to an A3 culture pizza. We collected everybody’s Inquiry Books and filled in the sections of the Culture Pizza. By doing this we found out more about what our Class Culture is like. Finally we returned the Inquiry books back to the students.

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Tukutuku panels

  

Purapura Whetu pattern

 Star seeds or sometimes star- dust is its name. It is the Arawa name for a simple cross-stitch pattern.

With every space filled with a cross-stitch it is an Arawa version called Te Mangoroa (the long shark being the milky way). This pattern was also known in some iwi as Roimata Tears. The whaganui elders believed this was one of the few original designs, but the pattern was left because it was monotonous and it’s name lost.

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The Waharau Tukutuku panel

 The story of the Waharua

The waharua is sometimes known as the double mouth but on the east coast of New Zealand it is known as the whakarua kapito, which is about the deepening of the position of the pito or naval. Its significance relates to the bravery of warriors, indicating that they are to be wounded by the enemy.

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Tukutuku panels

Aoraki

The Aoraki panel was made to know Ngai Tahu as Tangata whenua.  Chaverons of the niho taniwha pattern create the look of the mountain Aoraki, which might well be seen as a taniwha by the disrespectful or the unprepared.  Stiches of white kiekie show the mountains snowy covering while the repeated cheveron signify the layer of its creative structure.  The mountain reaches up to the purapura whet stars in the sky.  Two tiny white niho taniwha triangles, on either side of the mountain, represent the Southern Alps and in the foreground, three triangles of pingao represent tussock - covered foothills.

              By Monique

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Maori Meeting House (Wharenui)

A Maori Meeting House can be called a Wharenui meaning meeting house or whare whakairo meaning carved house. The present style of wharenui original became in the early to middle nineteenth century. This is a Maori Meeting House (Wharenaui). Maori Iwis build a Wharenui to keep their culture alive and to remember their ancestors. A Wharenui represents the body of their ancestors. The front of the Maori Meeting House is the face and the arms. The koruru at the point of the gable on the front of the wharenui can represent the ancestor's head. The maihi are the diagonal bargeboards and signify arms, the ends of the maihi are called raparapa, meaning "fingers". The tāhuhu (ridge beam) represents the backbone, the heke or rafters signify ribs. Internally, the poutokomanawa is the central column and can be interpreted as the heart.

When you walk inside it is the inside of the person’s body. The roof beams are often decorated with kowhaiwhai patterns and are the ribs.