Making Māori symbols

As we have been exploring Māori patterns and symbols since we visited the museum. The children have also been interested in stories of Maui. It started off with one child showing our class his fish hook shaped necklace. From there we started to explore what some of the symbols mean to us. 

We learnt some of the names of the symbols in Māori-tiki, koru, ruapiko, hei matau. We read the Maui books to learn where the hook came from. Many children are familiar with the story where Maui got his grand father's jawbone. With it, Maui tamed the sun. 

Linking all the information together, the children were also able to remember how our carver Ronnie was wearing his necklace, and he explained that it was tāniwha that he designed and made. 

Children had a go at making the symbol that they liked using clay.

Weaving

After exploring the tukutuke panels last week and thinking about patterns, we gave it a go at weaving.

Children learnt to weave up and down through the black paper, and explored the concept of patterns. Everyone worked very hard as this was quite a difficult task manipulating paper needing good fine motor skills. They kept trying and trying and some of them got so interested that they made many weaving patterns.
Awesome work everyone!