Marae week.

What a fun week!

In the morning on Monday, everyone walked in, knowing this was not a normal school week, every year seven was either excited, nervous, or both. Once the first bell rang, we walked into class and went straight to the pōwhir, where people get together and welcome each other. The year 7s did a Karakia and some year 8's did a haka. After a pōwhiri, it is traditional to have some food so you feel welcome. We shared kai and in the afternoon we watched the exciting but sad movie, the whale rider.

On Tuesday our syndicate went on a rotation around all the technology classes. With Mrs. Scott we made tukutuku panels, tukutuku panels are when you have a board with a bunch of holes in it and you weave wool through the holes, when making a tukutuku you have to think about what's special about you and what you enjoy, you have to include that into your panel as well. and what hard materials. Mr. Tate, where we made traditional māori jewelry. We went to E-tech with Mr. Boyes where we made a box with a laser-printed image on it. After that, we went to art with Mrs. Whitson where we spent the rest of the day doing traditional māori paintings and art.

On Wednesday we practiced our haka and made harakeke flax where we wove flowers in the science lab. Some year 8s came in to help us and we got our flax and wove a flower, one was with 4 strands ad one with 2 strands of flax. We also played a game called Maui, Matau where you are holding a stick in a circle. If ‘maui’ is called then you move to the stick to your left and if it's ‘matau’ you move to your right, if you drop it you're out! The last one standing with their stick wins! We also played Poi Toa, which is sort of like netball with a poi, you can't run with the poi, you are trying to get it to the person on your team who is in a circle and can't step out of it. The winner is the person who can get it to the person in the circle the most.

On Thursday Room 5 played Ki o Rahi to get ready for the competition. This is a strategic game of teamwork and fun! At the end of the day, we identified plants in the school with Mr. J. We worked in teams to find all of the plants and what they were used for.

On Friday we did the Ki o Rahi competition and played our hearts out. At the end of the day, we did the haka competition and placed second. It was so much fun being up on stage!

By Mason Hall

Our delicious Hangi

Last week on Friday we had a Hangi since it was Marae week. All of the male teachers came down to school at 3 am to dig a pit to cook the food in. They then had to look after it all day so that no one walked on it, year 8 leaders included. Everyone had to be in their class groups and wait half an hour while they dug it up. After they dug it up we lined up in class lines to get our food. You got to choose what you wanted, there was Kumara, potatoes, filling, and meat.

We really enjoyed the week 😀.

By Baran and Erin