Dancing with the Stars!

BubbleShare:

Rona and the Moon Dance

Today we used Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons' violin concerto to dance to. We got into groups to prepare a dance about Rona and the Moon. This is what we explored...
PK: Explore mirroring in pairs and moving through different environments, making different pathways and shapes. We explored the changing shape of the moon: the full round moon shrinking to a thin arc moon; make the shape of a star; the shape of a water gourd empty, then full of water; make the crouched shape of Rona's reflection in the pond: a mirror image, then Rona's curled-up shape captured inside Marama, the moon; use mirroring and magnetism to show the moon's gravitational pulling and pushing powers – its magnetic field.
DI: Develop direct and indirect pathways in the air and on the floor, creating a non-locomotive and locomotive sequence.
CI: Perform our dances. We identified the shapes and pathways of the moon and the stars and gave lots of feed-back and feed-forward using the elements of dance.
Here are two of our presentations. I would love to have included them all as they were all of such a high standard. It was especially satisfying to see the enjoyment, creativity and the total involvment of both boys and girls.

The Legend of the Seven Whales

Maori Myths and Legends

Click on Rona being pulled up to the moon to read the myth.
Over the last two weeks we have listened to 2 other Maori myths and legends. They were 'Rona and the Moon' and 'The Legend of the Seven Whales'. We retold Rona and the Moon and published this retell using either Powerpoint or Word. After reading the Legend of the Seven Whales we responded to one of the characters visually using symbols of the Maori. We used
water colour paints and then used Indian ink to paint on tattoos.
Click on the Seven Whales art work to read about 'The
Legend of the Seven Whales' . These whales were sacred to
the Ngāi Tahu Matawhāiti, a sub-tribe of Ngāti Kahungunu
ki Te Wairoa.

WALT...

• understand why the Maori culture has Myths
• retell 'Maui and The Sun' orally to a partner
• write a retell of 'Maui and the Sun'

Today we read a Maori Myth called Maui and the Sun. We read several versions of the same story. We noticed that they had the same message but used different language to retell the myth.
We learned that a myth is a story that explains a natural phenomenon in a creative way, such as how the sun moves through the sky. Myths, which often include gods and goddesses and other supernatural characters who have the power to make extraordinary things happen, are popular even when people know the actual reasons for natural phenomena. The Maori people used to tell these stories orally as their society was traditionally an oral one. There is a long tradition of singing and storytelling. History is passed on through the many stories that are passed on from generation to generation. This is done with song, dance and chants.
We also learned about why the Maori people have Myths.
Here are some reasons...

• To strengthen a community and provide a common understanding
• Moral guidance eg some show how greed, stupidity and dishonesty effected people
  
• To explain how the world works, for example why the seasons change, and to explain strange happenings or phenomena such as eclipses - the reasons for which were unknown in early times.
• To entertain as no TV and books around to amuse people
  
• To pass on history and knowledge
• For fame, money and recognition - not all stories were told for good reasons eg stories about battles or wars could be written to make the character more brave than they really were

Read How Maui Slowed the Sun
Then complete the crossword at wicKED
Print it off and glue it into your homefun book.

The Signs, Symbols and Myths of the Maori

Our new inquiry for the rest of the term is 'The Signs, Symbols and Myths of the Maori'. It has a links to Technology, Social Sciences, English and The Arts. We hope to make lots of connections between these areas and to our lives. The Principles, Values and Key Competencies have been infused through this unit allowing us to make more connections. Today we looked at our knowledge of the Maori culture and people. We did not have a broad enough base from which to build our thinking so we will be doing lots of exploring over the next week, looking at Myths and Legends of the Maori, art of the Maori people and exploring the many signs and symbols from Maori culture.

Today we looked at the words - communication, signs, symbols. This is what we found out...

COMMUNICATION is the passing on of news, information, messages, stories etc to other people.

A SIGN is anything written, drawn or done to tell or show people something

A SYMBOL is a thing that represents or suggests something.

We brainstormed to list all the signs and symbols we could think of which belong to the Maori culture. We will add to this list as the unit goes on.