Reading: Ngatu

 Today I my group of people were reading about ngatu. 

Firstly we started reading the first small paragraph and it was talking about what the women do while making the ngatu. They all speak lea faka - Tonga (the Tongan language), And laugh a lot. Also they sing traditional songs as they put their hands into gooey and slimy white paste which is made from potato or cassava, flour and water. 

The second paragraph was about to little girls Lita and Megan from New Zealand learning about the tongan cultural ngatu making. On the saturday in the school hall in Taita, with their grandmothers, mothers, cousins and siblings at a workshop making ngatu. The two cousins spend a whole day with their grandmothers and they had lots of fun.

The process of making ngatu is they chop down the mulberry tree after they chop the mulberry tree down the women are to peel off the bark with their teeth. After they've peeled the bark off they hang it in the sun to dry, when it finishes drying they soak it in water to soften it after it softens they use a wooden tool to beat the bark to make it thinner. When they finish beating the ngatu into nice wide and big pieces they leave it out to hang to dry in the sun.

Lastly they use brown dye and use the husk of the coconut as utensils. It takes an entire group of women to dye  or paint the ngatu because it's gigantic. After they've made the epatterns they leave it out to dry in the sun one last time and the ngatu is finished.

I enjoyed reading about this story it taught many things about how to make ngatu and whats it's used for. The story was very interesting it also taught some of the tongan kids in our class what some of the words mean in the story in tongan. 

Science: Flower Power

Today at Technology my group were learning about flowers.

Today we were learning about the hibiscus. We were watching a video about how to dissect the flower, firstly you'll need a sharp knife or a butter knife just to cut down the middle. but it was tricky for us because the stigma snapped off easily so we had to be very careful when cutting the hibiscus. After we've dissected the hibiscus we carefully separate the  parts inside the hibiscus.

When we finished dissecting the hibiscus we could see the different parts of the hibiscus like the novel was very tiny and you could barely see the seeds inside it, we put the different parts of the hibiscus on the cutting board so we could get a clear view of the different parts. 

After viewing the different parts we used the ovule under the microscope but before it went under the microscope we had to use the knife or something blunt to mash up and place it on the glass and a little drop of water and then put a small piece of glass over the ovule. We put the ovule under the microscope and if you put it under some sunlight you can see the little parts clearly.

At technology today it was very interesting and fun because we got to use the microscope and it was some of our first time using it. It was cool to see the little particles and it was a clear view.

Word art - Chameleon

 

This word art is about what make me be and what i'm about.

So today my class did a word art about where we're from what we're proud of and what we love to do. Im proud of representing my culture, so I joined a group called mangaia. My enua aitutaki didn't Make a group fast enough so we had to join the only one available. Us cook islanders are originated from hawaii way back in the 1000s. The sports I enjoy playing is rugby, basketball and softball. The main thing I like about my family is visiting my great great grandmother, she's 95 years old and still walking. My nana and them love to spoil me and my siblings, also my family from australia love to come down every year to reunite and spend quality time together.

I love my family because they make me what I am and they are fun to hang around with.

DLO - Coconut Tree

Today I did a DLO about a coconut tree. I learnt the the parts of a coconut tree can be used for many different thing. Like I learnt that people use the trunk to make boats and houses.