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Mānawatia a Matariki from BestStart Waiuku
Here at BestStart Waiuku, we celebrated Matariki throughout our 3 classrooms. These photos highlight some of the experiences that the toddler room was engaged in. They focused on learning about each star and the pūrākau that pertain to them. As the Matariki star appeared in Waiuku, the kaiako implemented their plan for that upcoming moon cycle starting from Whiro and ending with Mutuwhenua o Ruhanui.
To celebrate as a whānau, we invited our families to koha a huawhenua for a hakari, preparing ngā huawhenua we all grated, chopped, and scrubbed! At lunch time we sat together and nourished our tinana with a warm pot of healthy soup. Reka kai! We utilised our mat times to learn about Tupuānuku and the Matariki star, sharing pūrākau from our pukapuka and stories from home.
One of our centre philosophy values is whanaungatanga, which means we value the connections we make with one another and find ways to nurture our growing relationship. We wanted to highlight this philosophy throughout our planning for Matariki. Another fun experience that we engaged in was making our banana tea fertiliser.
This experience demonstrated to ngā tamariki how we can give thanks back to Papatūānuku and to Tupuānuku. We made the banana tea with the leftover banana peels from our morning tea and soaked them in a recycled bottle of water. We will use this tea on our māra kai along with a karakia. A good day in the maramataka (lunar calendar) to give back to Papatūānuku is on the moon, Oike, which is a couple of days after the full moon.