Every year the Māori people in new zealand celebrates Matariki. Matariki is a group of 7 stars that shine bright in late may and early june just before dawn. It is a maori new year that can be celebrated in MANY different ways. For a example, you can do kite making (Manu tukutuku), Storytelling, weaving (with flax) kapa haka and many more ways to celebrate. But for now, let’s talk about our kite making. We are doing this because today ( on the Thursday 23rd of may) my school is holding up a celebration at our school hall. Nearly every class has made something to celebrate this event.
Since we are making kites, we had to gather all the materials to make it. First, we went out of the school, crossed the road safely and went up the hill we did cross country. We found some toetoe hanging around on the side, but before we took some of it, we had to do a Karakia. A karakia is a prey that Maori people say before they eat, when your day starts and when you take something from natural plants. This is basically showing Tikanga. Tikanga is all about respect to different types of cultures and why we do what we do. For an example, if I walked into your house with my shoes still on, you might be expecting me to take of my shoes because it might be disrespectful to other cultures. After we said a nice Karakia Miss Hills cut the fluffy toetoe like she was giving a haircut to them. We came back to our classroom and gathered the different coloured wool that Miss Hills brought for the weaving part, harakeke and toi toi we just collected. Now let’s get started!
To start of, we had to cut the toe toe in three equal parts to make the base of the manu (kite), So we had to use our mathematical knowledge to work it out. First, we measured the long thick toi toi, up to where me and Kaleb (my buddy) wanted to cut it. Me and him found out that the toi toi measured up to 1 cm so we knew that we had to work in decimals because 1 cm divided by 3 is impossible. First, we both knew that 1 cm = 100 metres so we worked with that. Since we have to cut it in three equal parts, me and Kaleb put the 100 metres down to 99 to make it WAY easier. We both got a pen and paper out and wrote down 99 divided by 3 = 33 because 33 x 3 = 99. Now we still have that 1 metre left of to do. We put that metre down to .9 and split that into three, and gave us .3! So now we know that we have to split it in 33.3 equal parts. That .1 we still had left over, we didn’t care about that because it’s only a tiny little as gap that I am pretty sure no one will care about. After that boring part I did not enjoy, we rapped some wool around the top to keep everything together, got long straps of Harakeke and started to work our way up weaving. After that fun mission was accomplished, we wanted it to keep it nice and tight to fly one day, so we decided to put hot glue blobs at the back of the manus incase. The easiest part that I found simple was working with a teammate I was opened with and comfortable sharing my ideas with. The hardest part I found a little difficult was the mathematical knowledge we had to use was a little confusing at first but got use to it when my buddy explained it over and over again. What I think I need to work on is to be more confident whenever I’m being recorded and to have a loud voice. Now the Manu’s are ready for the Matariki celebration!
