Mānawatia a Matariki
Storytelling is a fantastic way to engage ākonga in digital projects. Digital Future Aotearoa (DFA) facilitator Kate has been working alongside Ōtautahi kura over the last few weeks to introduce resources with a special focus on Matariki. The engagement, inspiring projects developed and enthusiasm from everyone involved has been inspirational. Kate’s thoughts on this:
“In kura this year there has been a strong commitment to learn more about Matariki and to celebrate, reflect and grow knowledge. It has been amazing to support kura aspirations through DFA’s outreach mahi alongside Te Pā o Rākaihautū, Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto and Aidanfield Christian School”
This work has built on the Matariki Moonhack project DFA created in collaboration with Code Club Australia in 2021. This resource, available in Te Reo Māori and English, was developed alongside a cluster of ātaahua indigienous storytelling projects. In 2022, the DFA team has been busy growing our kete of matihiko activities and projects to support ākonga and kaiako in exploring Matariki within the digital curriculum progress outcomes.
Here are some of the Matariki highlights from kura outreach sessions:
Digital Storytelling at Aidanfield Christian School
The school library has been positively buzzing with energy with a digital focus on storytelling and Matariki. The junior Year 0-1 team were supported by Kate in writing simple kidbot unplugged programs to navigate around each whetū, discovering the association each one has to the environment. Once we were confident in our coding we plugged in with Blue-bots and collaboratively navigated them through the Matariki cluster.
Mānawatia a Matariki - Micro:bit
Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto welcomed their whanau for an evening of performance, Matariki activities and kai to celebrate and enjoy quality time together as a community. With a Code Club recently up and running in kura the DFA team supported in running a Micro:bit session. Whanau worked together in MakeCode to create a multimedia animation in celebration of Matariki. The highlight was seeing tamariki showcase their digital skills to their whanau. Our Code Club tuakana also shone in their role as digital pouahi, supporting younger tamariki in having a go!
Sphero at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto
The Year 7 and 8 ākonga were set the wero of coding around the Matariki cluster using direction, speed and time inputs. Interweaving storytelling they also wrote creative code to display animations of each whetū and its Tūrangawaewae.
Scratch JR storyboards with Te Waka Unua and Te Pā o Rākaihautū
The Year 0-1 and 3-4 ākonga and kaiako learnt how to create their own storyboard animations of Matariki through ScratchJR on iPad! We collaboratively worked through the project instructions together and then had creative time to tutu and add individual narration and waiata. We had the whetū twinkling, kites flying and even one or two Matariki dragons and rapeti.
If you're feeling inspired, jump in and explore our Matariki resource kete - all of these projects include teacher support documents and can be found here: enjoy! https://codeclub.nz/page/code-club-projects-links