This is a cross-post from Abbey’s ePortfolio.

Yesterday we had a surprising visitor named Jerome Kavanagh. He was there to help is make Taratahi-kites.

We used Toi- toi, Raupo-Bull Rush and Harakeke-flax. We started off by getting the Toi-toi and the Harakeke.  First cut the toi-toi in to three even pieces, lay them down on the floor into a triangular shape. The next step is really hard, you wind the Harakeke around each corner so that it all joins together. When you have joined them all together you grab the RRRRRaupo and lay it down on the top. I am not going to tell you the rest because it is very hard to explain, so watch the slide show that I have put here.  Watch the slide show and see all the stuff that we did.

Here’s a tip for getting the Toi-toi, if it is straight like a toothbrush you are not grabbing the right thing because that my friend is called Pampas, so if you are looking for toi-toi it looks a bit like it’s trying  to stretch over or it could be just “chillin”.

One thing that I thought that was absolutely AMAZING was that there are Kauri snails on our Aorangi Mountain in front of our school. This is really unique for this area because they are nearly extinct and they are usually found in warmer weather like up north. Tane Mahuta means the forest or bush and Tawhirimatea means ‘The god of the winds’. Jerome also told us about how Maui fished up the North Island. One of the interesting parts about it was that all of his brothers usually caught a fish before lunchtime but they didn’t so they blamed it in Maui for being there. But then Maui snuck away and started to do his own fishing he used a normal hook and used his Mother’s Tikitiki-hair. For bait he punched his nose and made it bleed, he put the blood on to the hook lowered it down and then soon enough had caught a fish.