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Exploring Arrowtown Museum
Here at BestStart Queenstown we are developing a deeper understanding on creating a localised curriculum and how to better incorporate biculturalism into our learning. We are very lucky to have such wonderful, diverse and culturally rich places to visit and one of those was the Arrowtown District Lakes Museum. So our amazing group of four years olds took public transport to Arrowtown to learn more about our local history and ancestry.
We explored old and historic artifacts including a Moa bone (700 plus years old), old miners boot, gold pan, traditional carved green stone Maori paddle weapons, Poha (bull kelp containers) and many other early settler tools.
Next we explored the museum and completed a scavenger hunt. We looked at life in the early days and how the local miners and traditional Maori lived and interacted.
We then all sat down and learned how to make our very own butter. There was lots of shaking involved and lots of yummy butter at the end to try.
We finished our visit with learning about the traditional Maori art of creating a tuku tuku. These are very beautiful and intricate works and we saw one created of the landscape of Queenstown. After this the children tried their hand of creating their own. So many talented artists in our group.
Then it was time for the bus ride back to BestStart. As you can see some of our we tamariki we exhausted, lucky Nicole leaded her arm for a pillow. Thanks for sharing this wonderful learning experience and a big shout out to Nicole, Katy, Emma, Maria for there help on the day!
We look forward to incorporating what we have seen and learnt back at BestStart and to our next learning adventure to Walters Peak coming up.