My Marae Recount

Marae Recount                         

On The  1-2 of May Room 5 and Room 7 went on a camp overnight to the Arahura Marae. Jerry was a local from the marae and he showed us around. We went there to know and learn about Maori culture.

The Powhiri

The Powhiri is a welcoming ceremony that they do to welcome guests onto the marae. First,  in the
Powhiri is the Karanga. The karanga is when the two female leaders from the Marae staff and the guests call to each other in Maori. Our female leader was Miss Ireland. After the karanga was the Whaikorero; the two male leaders talk to each other and then the rest of the group will sing a song. Our male leader was John that works at Grey High. The hosts do their whaikorero first then sing a waiata. John did his speech. That was very nice of him to stop work and come to do this for us. He gave a koha that the hosts picked up and we kept on facing them after they picked it up. Me, room 5 and the rest of  room 7 sung, ‘He Honore’ followed by the hongi.  I was the most nervous for the hongi because it felt very different for me and  I felt a little bit uncomfortable. I was pleased though that I still did it.


Evening Rotations

In the evening rotations you could do a technology challenge with Miss Ireland, soap carving with Ms Barrow, flax weaving with Ms kemp and indoor games with Adrian and Phaedra. You were only allowed to do two things and my two were Technology challenge and soap carving. You got to do 1 hour of something

for the first hour then another thing for the last hour. My first thing was Technology challenge and the challenge was to make a taniwha. Me, Kade, Issac and Kayden were in a team and Kade was our mascot. Me, Kayden and Issac made little balls for his back like spikes with a very strong and steady tool. He had a short tail so when he was sad Kade could put the tail down without touching it and goes up when he’s happy. Over all we scored a 36/40, the other team, that was just girls beat us and got a 40/40, and that was the hour up and it was time to do the soap carving. The soap that we had to carve in was pretty rounded on the edges so to make it easier I flattened up the edges with my skewer. I carved a koru, an upside down koru and a maori warrior face. Charlie and Cameron just made a huge hole and was just having fun destroying there piece of soap and in the last 5 minutes I destroyed my piece and used it as some wax for my Tech Deck ( It works really well ).

The Walk To Mahinapua

On the second day of staying and just before coming back to school we went for a walk that took us to Lake Mahinapua. Me, Kayden and Noah were in a group and there was an activity sheet and on it there were some plants you had to try and find.  On the back of it there were a couple of questions that you had to try and answer about the track. There was a rusty shovel that had a couple of sentences on the sharp part that the dirt goes on. In them sentences there was information on what you need to know to answer the questions. It was a very muddy, dirty, slippery and a fabulous walk! The Lake Mahinapua is special to two of the carvings that were in the Wharenui. It was about a war and the tribe Ngai Tahu tried to take over the West Coast because all of the pounamu was on the West Coast.   The tribe that lived here on the West Coast had this legendary sorcerer that could see and sense if there were people coming. He saw the enemies coming and said to the god of the winds to make their waka capsize, so he did that. The tribe that lived here was on the sides of the lake and stabbed them when they swam back to shore but some drowned and their was this one person left in the Ngai Tahu war party and he took
the three chiefs heads with him.  He wouldn't be able to swim back to Christchurch with three whole bodies so he took the heads back because it’s the most valuable part of the body. He took the heads back for proper burial in the ground and he had to go back in a straight line. That war is why Hokitika is could Hokitika because Hoki means to return and tika means straight. That was the end of the walk and stay so then it was time to come back to school.





Personal comment

It was the very first time for me being on a marae and I’m very grateful for the teachers and Marae staff for planning this for the year 5 and 6’s to go to the marae. It was a great experience, so for the next time I go on a marae  I will know  more about them.
 

                                               By Luken

Self Portratits-Quote Art Term One 2019

In term one we looked at our school values and what it takes to be a good learner and classmate at Karoro School.  As part of this we drew self-portraits and chose quotes that reflected something we believed in or a value we see as important.

Here is some of My art :  )

If I Had Wings Poem

For the past few weeks we have been doing poetry. This weeks task was a poem about If I Had Wings... First we had to answer some questions and then we had to colour in the piece of paper with the poem. Last of all we had to write our own If I Had Wings poem. We had to use sticky 
( interesting ) language, use the five senses and use interesting verbs and nouns. Here is my poem.

Get NZ Writing-Poetry

Over the past few weeks we have been part of the 'Get NZ Writing' Poetry project. This project aimed to get 96,000 poems written accross NZ! We were sent a tin with objects in it and we used one of these objects to write poems. Here is my Poem.

My Pōwhiri Process

We have been learning about being welcomed onto a marae. Here is my writing work about pōwhiri.w

The Powhiri Process

A powhiri is a maori welcome to the guests. I’m showing the reader what the
powhiri process is.

THE WERO

The first thing in the Powhiri process is the Wero. The Hosts do
the Wero to tell if the visitors come in peace. The fastest
warriors are sent down to tell if they come in peace or if they
come for war. The warriors put down something special like a
feather or a leaf from a tree. If the visitors don’t pick up they
object or if they pick it up and turn there back to the warriors
when they’re going back to their members, that means that they
come in war. If they pick up the feather and walk back slowly,
back to there members still facing the warriors that means that
they come in peace. Nowadays they very rarely do the wero
because the fights that happened  don’t happen anymore.

THE KARANGA

The Karanga is a call that the two women leaders do. In the
Karanga you need to be as quiet as you can for the calling. In
the Karanga the boys are around the side and at the back of the
group of people. The girls are in the middle and the female
leader are at the front of the group.

WHAIKŌRERO/ KOHA

In the whaikōrero there is a formal speech by the male leader
from the hosts and guests. The speech is about what has
happened to your tribe and to remember those who had past
away. In return the guests give a Koha to the hosts to say thank
you for letting the guests come. That is when the waiata comes
in.

WAIATA

The guests sing a waiata/song to the hosts after the visitors
speaker has finished speaking. The waiata shows a sign of
respect to the hosts for them to enjoy. A waiata shows that the
visitors come in peace. The hosts also sing a waiata after there
speaker.

HONGI

We do the hongi to show a sign of respect. In the hongi it also
shows a sign of friendship for one another. Sometimes in a
hongi it can make you feel a little uncomfortable. In a hongi you
touch noses then your forehead after your noses to do a hongi.

KAI

When we go inside, we’re just like normal finishing the powhiri
process. We sit in side the wharekai to go in and eat our food.
We develop friendship while eating our Kai. We show hospitality
when eating Our delicious Kai.

My Kawa Of Care Cartoon

We have been learning to follow the Kawa of Care which tells us how to look after your Chromebook be cyber smart. We had to chose three rules to write about. Here is my work.

I created a Scratch project.

Click here to see my project →→→→ Scratch project

Wharenui

Wharenui

This is about a wharenui. A Marae represents an ancestor that has past away. At the top of the
Marae there is a carved looking head and it’s called the kōruru. The kōruru represents the head
of the ancestor. The carvings in the Marae tell a story and the arms are the slanted carvings at the
top of the marae at the front. Just below the arms a little bit further down are the hands.
The Māori word for the arms are the maihi and the hands are the raparapa.

On the inside there will be a big pole in the middle called the poutokomanawa and on the back
wall there might be some pictures of the ancestors that have passed away. When you’re inside and
look up at the roof, there will be this big carved piece of wood from the front to the back of the
marae. It represents the spine of the body and is called the tāhuhu in Māori. There will be these
other carved wood pieces at the top going from the sides to the middle and that represents the ribs
of the body and is also called the heke in Māori.

The Marae is important because it represents an ancestor. At a Marae you can do lots of learning.
You can also go there when people need a place for when people need help. For example when the
Kaikoura earthquake happened the Marae over there let people stay there for free for Families that
had lost their homes in the earthquake.