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Matariki and its Cultural Significance
In celebration of Matariki this year, our team delved deeper, beyond the stars to discover what Matariki meant to us as a centre whanau. We gather to learn, to nourish, to flourish. Here we stand together. Through conversation with whanau maori we discovered chants, tikanga and felt a sense of authenticity as we learnt from our whanau. While providing various experiences for our learners in every room, we also created meaningful themes in our spaces that linked to the depth of meaning behind the stars. This year Matariki held a theme of honoring the stars Pohutukawa and Hiwa-i-te-rangi.
To support the theme of pohutukawa, our infant's room (Pukeko) created a display to honor those who have passed. In our entrance way we provided a space for whanau of the centre to write down their aspirations and share on our tree as wishes for the future to honor Hiwa-i-te-rangi along with our preschool room (Tui) creating aspiration stars with their learners to display within the room and highlight the strengths of each akonga.
Our toddler room (Kiwi) spent time harvesting our Kumara that we had grown throughout the year and as part of our tikanga we provided these gifts from papatuanuku to share in our whanau soup during our celebration. Our journey as learners continues with the support of our centre whanau. We are so blessed as a centre to have such a plethora of whanau culture that is shared and continues to empower us all on this journey.