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Celebrating Matariki at BestStart Silverstream
During the months of June and July our tamariki in the Nursery have been exploring different ways to celebrate Matariki. They painted Matariki Stars, iced star shaped biscuits with black icing and sprinkles to represent the starry night sky, made and decorated kites and shared a vegetable soup together.
The kaiako decided that a great way to celebrate Matariki was to have each of our Nursery Whanau to donate a vegetable to add to our vegetable soup. The soup was offered to the tamariki and their Whanau and was a great example of Manaakitanga. Our Nursery promotes the importance of having a whanau voice to weave into the learning of each of our tamariki. The kaiako were able to visually demonstrate this during Matariki. We created a 'Wish Upon a Star' wall and invited Whanau to write their aspirations and wishes for their child in the coming year. Each star was pinned to our 'Wish Upon a Star Wall'.
The kaiako had a korero about how we could effectively teach our Nursery tamariki what Matariki is all about. Kaiako Simone created trays, each displaying a different aspect of Matariki e.g. A grandmother exploring a family photo album with her grandchild (storytelling), kites flying in the sky (remembering our loved ones), Matariki stars in the sky, whanau working in a vegetable garden (harvesting).
Each tray was covered with coloured salt and the tamariki were encouraged to brush the salt away to reveal the picture underneath. Kaiako then talked to the tamariki about what was happening in each picture. We also found that for this age group that Waiata worked really well in teaching about Matariki. Tirama, Tirama and the YouTube song by Miss Nicky Says about the Matariki Stars was also a favourite. Matariki was a great time of celebration for our Nursery as the photos demonstrate.