Storytellers Residence Ōtaki - 'In other words Ōtaki'

 On Friday the nohinohi of Ngāi Kete welcomed some storytellers for the afternoon. They were in residence in Ōtaki for ten days as part of the storytellers residency - 'In other words Ōtaki' 

Ruth Paul (author of many books such as "My Dinosaur Dad" "Stomp" "The King's Bubbles")

Fifi Colston (author and illustrator of ,many books such as "The Last Crayon" "The Little Yellow Digger")

Peter Hambleton (actor and director)

These three wonderful people have been working on a project together and this residency in Ōtaki was an opportunity to really focus on their mahi as well as trial some ideas with students from the College, as well as with our tamariki at Ōtaki Kura.

Ruth started us off by selecting some tamariki to act out her story 'I am Jellyfish"

There were heaps of giggles as our actors tried on their costumes and acted out their parts.

THen Ruth shared her story "The Lion Guards the Cake"

"The Proud Pūteketeke" was the book up next. The was illustrated by Fifi, so she read this to us with Ruth managing a very cheeky pūteketeke beside her!

It really was a wonderful afternoon! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! 

We often talk about authors and illustrators - it was great for tamariki to meet people that do creative things for their jobs. Someone that writes for their work. Someone that draws pictures to their work. Someone that works on stage, televison, movies. All things we learn to do at school. All options for our tamariki in the future.

He mihi ka tika ki ngā kaiwhakahaere o te ahurei "In other words Ōtaki" 

He ahiahi pai rawa atu!

Ngā mihi.

He aha tō tino? What's your favourite?

 The weeks have been flying by... 'o' week turned very quickly into 'g' week! So the scientists we are we decided to look carefully at some delicious winter fruit. Namely oranges and grapefruit.

Not everyone had tried grapefruit before. So we sat them next to each other and talked about the differences between the fruit. What can you see? What do you notice?

Oranges are like circles... are like balls... are orange.

Grapefruit look like lemons. Do they? They look like flat lemons. They look yellow.

We cut them open to further our investigation. 

Do they look the same?

We smelt them - is there a difference? Yes! Oranges smell like oranges... what do grapefruit smell like?

Then the taste test - umm... some not so keen - a quick lick? 

Oranges were the universal favourite - but it's always good to try new things!

Te Manawa Dinosaur Dig

 At the end of July the nohinohi of Ngāi Kete travelled to Papaioea (Palmerston North) to Te Manawa for an educational session about dinosaurs and fossils in the New Zealand context. What fossils have been discovered here.

After talking about dinosaurs and the different things around in the time of dinosaurs that we still see today (plants like magnolias, tuatara etc). We talked a little about people that discovered dinosaur remains and fossils.  We were lucky enough to be able to handle some real fossils that had been discovered. Including some coprolite (dinosaur dung!).

We then went to another area of the museum and pretended to be paleontologists and fossil hunters. Using the tools that these people use to find and excavate fossils.