Our Visit to the Museum

AT THE MUSEUM When we went to the Museum we had some parents to help us, Mr Plessius, Mrs Mataroa and Ms Berry. 

We left school at 9 o’clock. On the bus we had to share seats but it was great fun. When we got to the Museum we had to wait in the Atrium. Here we are eating a small morning tea before we went to the Meeting House.

It was important to take our shoes off to go into the meeting house. We learnt about the parts of the meeting house the kowhaiwhai patterns on the roof and the tukutuku panels and how the Meeting House has carvings from wood and the tukutuku panels have designs made from flax. The flax is like string. The bigcarved panels tell a story about Grand-parents and they are called “Popo”

In the meeting house we learnt about all the different parts and practised the Haka.

       

Here Mr Plessius is helping us with the spinner. They also used a hammer-axe to do the carving. It was made with a stone and bound to the stick with string.

It was exciting doing an action song and interesting looking at the boats that brought the Maoris to Aotearoa –they first saw the long white cloud and so it is called the Land of the Long White Cloud-which is the meaning of Aotearoa.

In the display cases were baskets and other tools and clothes from the islands. There were lots of display cases with many displays.