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Lots of learning happening here
As we always do at this time of year, BestStart Montessori Taradale have been doing a lot of learning around Matariki; reading some different legends about the stars, singing songs, making kites, making stars and constellations, baking star biscuits, planting chickpea seeds to grow, and talking about ways we celebrate.
In Casa della Vita (3-6 year olds) we have read a few different legends about Matariki at mat times. One of these was "Together in Love" and incorporates the Māori creation story and the separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku (the sky father and earth mother). Another story we read was of seven little sisters who celebrated Matariki by making kites. The youngest little sister, Ururangi, made a rainbow kite, which the children found very exciting. The children were provided with a range of materials to craft their own kites to their own designs.
Matariki, the Māori New Year is a time to start planning and preparing for the spring garden. Thinking of ways that we can celebrate this time with the children, we decided as a team that sprouting chickpeas and planting them would be a great project for them. This started with reusing recycled containers brought in by our families, then the children soaked their chickpeas, then planted these in soil to be transported home to grow into a chickpea plant.
We learned the names of the stars in the Matariki constellation by singing a song in te reo. The tamariki loved having turns performing in front of the whole class and being in charge of one of our whetū (stars) .
In Casa di Amici (0-3 year olds), the children have been making star biscuits which are always a big hit in our room...the children can now do most steps of the process independently as we make these as part of most of our celebrations throughout the year. They have also made star necklaces and sticker Matariki constellation pictures...again, we enable the children to do as much of each process by themselves as possible to empower them and foster their independence.