Day 1: We were welcomed onto Papa O Te Aroha Marae with a powhiri. Aunty Bella was the Kuia who did the karanga to call us on. Matua Herewini replied, once in the wharenui the speeches began. E Pa started with his whaikorero and Herewini replied for us. Dionne, Holly, Leeanna and Sasha from last years Room 10 class sang the waiata for him. When the speeches were over we had to hongi and greet the tangata whenua.

After the powhiri was done and dusted it was time to have dinner.

Boss, Amos and Sasha loving the boil up

Ethan and Lloyd having dinner

Jacinda enjoying her boil up and Emma getting stuck into her food

Tiare was good at washing dishes, you can tell she enjoys it !

After dinner Aunty Bella came and talked to us about all the whakairo ( carvings) in the wharenui. They all tell a story.We found it really interesting:

Whaita

Poutuarongo

Titahi

Toroa

We liked :

the story of Rangitihi - he was struck in the head in battle but got his son to bandage it up with an akatea vine so he could carry on fighting (Brent)
Te Rauparaha - he hid in a potato patch from his enemies and the haka Ka Mate was written for him (Ashley)
Tangaroa - because he was part islander. (Amos)
Parahore, the story behind it was interesting, he killed his his wife so all of his tribe was annihilated by Ngati Raukawa (Bailey)
Hongi Hika - because he used a gun and changed warfare (Matthew)

Day 2:

We woke up early, some of us had to do breakfast duty...

Daeshaun making toast

Ethan and Amosa making our breakfast

Are you still awake Amos

Kereama making sandwiches for lunch

We were then off to Te Awamutu museum to learn about traditional maori innovation. Alan is the Education Officer there, we met him earlier this year when he came and taught us about Gallipoli. To find out t about Maori Innovation, we were given a board with little captions and we had to match parts of the exhibits with their meaning.If we finished before the others then we got a very difficult puzzle to solve. There were alot of interesting things to see. There were olden day eel and bird catchers, weapons that Maori used to defend themselves and the most interesting thing we saw and learnt was about the caving Uenuku:

Mr Reilly talking to us about the Uenuku carving- this isn't Uenuku, we weren't allowed to take photos of it.

Uenuku and the Battle of Hingakaka

Two hundred years ago 10 000 warriors from the lower North Island invaded the Waipa District on a mission of revenge. Led by Pikauterangi, a Ngati Toa chief, this invading army's purpose was to restore honour by wiping Maniapoto and their supporting Waikato tribes off the face of the earth. The Waikato defenders, totalling 1600, chose their battle ground on a ridge line just south of Lake Ngaroto. The ensuing battle was legendary, with the sacred carving Uenuku being lost in the carnage. Now Uenuku is one of Te Awamutu Museum's most treasured taonga.

Cam displaying and learning about the Maori olden day birdcatcher

Bleh ! Ksharna holding a patu

Class Brain

Wow ,you guys can actually work it's a miracle!

WOW ! Maire what a face

After chip sandwiches for lunch we went flax weaving with a man called Rob and his daughter Hennessey:

Rob teaching us how to start

Biddy on a roll

"No Maire you do it like this"

The girls!

Cameron racing ahead

Sasha enjoying her flax lesson

The PROFESSIONAL !

"I might be half asleep but at least I finished it"

After about 3 hours of flax weaving, we had to go back to the marae because some people had to play touch. While a few kids were at touch the others had free time. Then we all had dinner together which was delicious shepherd's pie which took Emma's mum all day to make.

Mmm... Yummy!

Then it was time to learn Te rakau and Tititoria.Whaea Awhina our school Kapa Haka tutor came to teach us ...

Rylie getting into it !

Then we were off to the movies to watch Step Up 3. It was awesome. On our way back we were all free running but I'm pretty sure the only people who saw us were the people in Spirited and they probably wouldn't have remembered us in the morning anyway.

Amos tried to jump over a rubbish bin but, sadly he failed and failed and failed.

When we arrived back at the marae it was very late and dark so Mrs Puke thought it was a good idea if we went out and had a quick fun game of spotlight. It was freaky.

Next it was time for bed. Mrs Puke read us a bit of Dracula to make us go to sleep

Day 3 : On Friday Nicholas Totton came to the marae and taught us some of his skills, string games, some of them were pretty hard to do.

5th year in a row and Mrs Puke still can't do it

Nicholas is the pro !

Are you sure Nicholas didn't do that for you Maire ?

After string games we had a quick morning tea. Two biscuits amd a drink of raro.
Then we went over to the Memorial sports grounds to learn to play some traditional maori games: Tapu Ae and Ki-O-Rahi. KC Maaka from Raukawa and her helpers taught us- it was so hot! We really enjoyed learning some new games:

Run Biddy,Run!!

Brooke getting her tan

Tiare running

Then it was back over to the Marae for ice cream and lunch. Next up was a game of the Room 10 favourite Moon Ball, this was followed by our Creation plays. We had made masks with the student teacher and in groups we performed our plays.

Pretty !

Sasha Ranginui

After that we were given a certificate for participating in the performance. It was fun.Then we were allowed a yummy piece of cake made especially by Jacinda's mum