21.3.2014

Kia ora Mrs Macgregor,

In our class we have been learning about the creation story, (in the beginning), because it is part of our whakapapa. We are learning about our ancestors.

We learnt about the separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku, and the Atua that separated them. We are learning about Tānemahuta, the God of the Ngahere.

We went out to see Tāne and read him a story. We read it to him because we wanted him to know the pūrākau. We looked at the Ngahere and guess what we noticed...

There were lots of weeds and some of them were strangling the little rākau. Whaea Lesley saved it by removing the weed. We saw a big rākau that had been completely strangled by weed and it was dead! We were sad about this. We discovered there were heaps of weeds and our harakeke was being smothered. What a mess! Poor Tāne.

We want to be the Kaitiaki of the ngahere at our school...that is the guardians of the native tree area. This is our rubbish area too! We like this area and we have been doing a lot of investigating cicadas down there. We also use the harakeke and we Māori people believe in kaitiakitanga, and we want to look after Papatūānuku and Tānemahuta.

We talked to Mr Rossiter about the problem and asked if we could look after this area and be the kaitiaki. He said we could do it. We asked Mrs Woollard and you too! You said we could, and Mrs Woollard said, "Go for it!"

We were thinking of ways we could look after it, like how to destroy the weeds, how to look after the rākau. We hope Mr Standish can help us to move the rubbish. Cooper's friend Bart Cox knows a lot about trees and he is going to come and talk to us about the rākau, and conservation. We are going to ask the council about weeds and how to get rid of them.

We have started a project. We want to get our whānau involved too, to help us out. We are going to be working hard, and looking after Tāne, and being the Kaitiaki.

Would you like to help us?

Thank you,

Ngā mihi

Rūma ono...Cyrus, Lachlan, Chelsea, Meg, Georgia, Charlie, Hamiora, Aperahama, Ellie, Charli, Mya, Alice, Kaiyah, Tanya, Kobi, Kere, Tariana, Georgia Leigh, Latisha, Aiesha Jay, Cooper, Jessica, Jacob, Reese, Hoana, Sue and Whaea Lesley.