Our visit to Glen Innes Library

Today, Wednesday 5th of August,  Room 7 went on a fun trip to the Glen Innes library near the Te Oro center. As we sat down in the bus to go to the G.I library,  we sang  the wheels on the bus then in no time we arrived at the library.

As we got out of the bus the rain was pouring but we made it  to the entrance of the library safe and sound. We walked in admiring the whole lot of books set on the shelves and also the cook island flag that hung on the wall. We were greeted by the Auckland museum people who introduced themselves and discussed the plans for the morning. We were split into 2 groups, and were told that we were going to play a important part of the Maori story about how the mountains in Tamaki Makaurau formed. Both groups were enemy tribes in the story and the stars of the story were Princess Amelia and Prince Danny. The first tribe was the Patupaiarehe, which was the fairy tribe and also the group I was in. Group one had to learn defense moves using a rakau which was a bamboo stick, we also learned stealth moves which was how to move quietly in the forest. The 4 parts of our body that we had to defend was our head, neck, legs and body. When we did all the moves we counted Tahi, Rua, Toru, Wha. When it came to the part of the story when both tribes were fighting over Princess Amelia both tribes repeated the moves several time trying to defeat one anothe. Unfortunately none of the tribes won the battle. The king of volcanoes and land interrupted the battle and was very angry at both tribes for fighting since they woke him up from his long slumber. So he created volcanoes and mountains bonding the tribes together creating a whole family.

The next activity we had was making a matau mold. To create the matau mold we were given a piece of clay to roll in a ball. Then we were given 2 different ma tau necklaces to create a mark o the necklace on the clay so we can fill in the mark with Plaster of Paris which is what casts are made of. Afterwards we wrote our name on a napkin and wrapped our matau mold in the napkin. As we each put our matau molds inside a brown paper bag to take back to school, the Auckland Museum helpers were getting ready to give prizes to people who were paying attention during the story. After all the prizes were given out, we were given delicious fruit from the people who worked at the G.I library.

Soon it was time to leave, but before we left I thanked all those who helped with the programme and for teaching great defense skills. As soon as we knew it, we were on the bus ready to go back to school and ready for the 3 conference. I really enjoyed our trip to the G.I library, it was a very fun opportunity and I hope our class would get to go again.