Matariki ~ My Wonderful, Tragic Day :)

Today was one of the most wonderful yet tragic day's I have ever experienced!

Today we celebrated Matariki! Matariki is in fact the Maori name for the cluster of stars called the pleiades. Matariki is about celebrating Maori new years. The Pleiades are a seven star cluster. Many people debate on whether there are 7 or 9 stars.  The Maori constellations states that there are 7 stars. Waiti, Waita, Waipuna-rangi, Tupu-a-nuku, Tupu-a-rangi, Ururangi and Matariki!

After our school assembly we set off to our groups. The previous week, we got the chance to choose what group we wanted to be in. The options were, Cooking, Arts and crafts, Movie making and sports. I wanted to be in either sports or cooking but I got put into Arts and crafts :/ Due to some, uneven groups.  I was with Mrs Stone and Mrs Carruthers in room 4.

Our task was to decorate some printed off stars. Seven of them! We could use any design we wanted. Our next step was to use dye to create a background for our stars. 'There's no wrong awnser to art." Just go for it! :) I first started off with completing my seven stars. The supplies we were able to use were colored pencils and coloring felts. I chose some pretty unique designs. I also sat on a table with some of my close friends, John, Kitione, Brendon and Kobey. We talked quite a lot. And the classroom was pretty noisy too, so it wasn't just us :)

Once I finished decorating my stars, I went outside and got onto my background while Mrs Carruthers cut out my stars. I used purple, light and dark blue for my backdrop. I started off pretty well. Until one of my friends Nina accidentally spilt water on me and Pauline's masterpiece! How sad, I was doing so well :( Mrs Stone got both me and Pauline a new piece of paper and we started all over again. I used the same colours and was able to redo my background. In my opinion, it turned out better than the last. I then used white paint to make it look like tiny stars. I got the paint everywhere but my paper. My face, hands, arms, uniform, and legs! It was an absolute disaster, but I'm still happy with my creation. We let our backgrounds dry.

Our last step was to paste our stars onto our backgrounds. Using glue sticks we pasted our stars onto our creative backgrounds and we were finished. A day filled with long conversations, messy art, paint all over the place and a lot of tragic uniforms. Today was all about having fun and celebrating Matariki and at the end of the day, I was happy I got put into Arts and Crafts! At the moment, no photos of the day but once I find some, they'll be here :)) A special thanks to all the teachers and staff members who made today a special and possible day.

 A day filled with fun! Happy Matariki!

What I Desire, My Culture And Who I Admire! (My visual mihi!)

Walt: Create a Visual mihi, including 4 of your interests, places you are connected ETC.


This is my visual mihi! In my visual mihi I have included, my culture's, what I desire and one of the places I enjoy visiting.

As you can see, on the top left I have added the Tongan flag. I have created the Tongan flag because, that is my culture. I am half Tongan and the other half you will find out about later. Tonga is a beautiful island which my family and I love to visit all the time! We love going to the beach, visiting our family and also going to church.

On the top right, I have put Ratana Pa. You might not understand but here my explanation. Ratana Pa or Ratana Community is a little town in the North Island of New Zealand, which is near Whanganui. Ratana Pa is a Maori church, which sometimes my grandparent like to take us there to visit. When we go we like to watch the band play their amazing music and also go swimming!

On the bottom left I have put in "love family." Why? you may ask. Well, I absolutely love my family. On a scale of 1-10, I'll say 100! My family means everything to me and I have no idea what I would do without them. I love them to bits and could never imagine what would ever happen to me if I never had them.

Next you can see koru's shaped as a heart and on the inside I have written Maori! Yes, I am half Tongan and half Maori. Obviously I can't visit the country because, I mean i'm living in it! Things I like to do to represent my cutler is things like kapa haka or even doing tau'olunga's (*meaning* Tongan dance.)

Last of all you will see me! Right in the middle of the page. I really enjoyed drawing myself. I have (yes) really dark brown hair. I also have dark brown eyes. The picture is (of course) representing me! It also represents my school by, wearing my uniform with "pride."

I hope you have enjoyed my visual mihi and what y picture's represents.

The Flight Of The Bumblebee

This morning room 10 listened to a song. The song is called the flight of the bumblebee. When room 10 listened to the flight of the bumblebee we had to draw a picture of what you think is happening during the song. Miss West gave us some ideas, those ideas were maybe when the music is getting louder the darker you use the pencil and when the music gets softer the lighter you use the pencil. Miss West also said maybe a bee is chasing someone? I decided to go with my own idea. As you can see in my photo someone is falling, as the music gets louder she gets closer to the ground. I thought someone was going to hit the ground because the music is quite scary and loud.

The Flight Of The Bumblebee
composer: Rimsky-korsarov
1844-1908

Sarah C Art

Our inquiry topic for this term is Art Attack. We are learning about lots of different artists. I painted a scene by a New Zealand artist called Sarah C.