Making maps to tell our Aotearoa stories

 Last week we wrote in our journals about the world we see outside of our whare - I saw some fabulous writing.  The most important thing we all did was take small things and make them important in our writing.  I saw some great use of metaphors and other language features.  We also watched part of a Mike King documentary, where he is thinking about how to tell the story of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and why it is important to him.

This week, we have junior testing (PAT reading) happening on Wednesday.  Then students will be working on making maps of their connections to New Zealand, past and present.  Starting on paper, each of us will make links to places in New Zealand that we know something about, or have a personal connection to.  Starting with what we know, and building up over the next few weeks, we will include:

• where we were born
• where we live now
• our marae
• where our family members first lived when they came to Aotearoa
• places we have lived
• places we have visited
• where Te Tiriti was signed on 6 February 1840
• other places where Te Tiriti was signed
• sites of the New Zealand wars
• sites of natural disasters 

Matua Gordon and I will make our own maps alongside you, and when we are ready to share them, we will put them on our learning blogs.  We will each have an opportunity to decide how we want to present the maps we have made using both verbal and visual techniques.