My Matariki Panel

If you wake up before dawn at the end of May or the start of June, you might see the Matariki stars. The Māori celebrate Matariki because it is the start of the Māori New Year. For Matariki Room 13 have been making Matariki Panels.
Most of Room 13 students got a piece of wood each that we had to divide into three parts. Each part has a different pattern and each pattern represents a different thing. The top pattern is about ‘New Growth’, the middle is about ‘You and your Family’. I like the last pattern because it is about ‘Matariki’.
 For ‘New Growth’ I made a flower out of ovals and koru. I made a flower because to me it is new life, new growth. The ovals are purple and the koru are black like the background.
In my family there are five people so I drew another flower, but this one has five petals. I painted the petals, light blue, dark blue, light purple, dark purple, and light green. I choose these colours because they are my favorite colours.
For ‘Matariki’ I did the seven stars. I painted my stars white. After the white had dried Ms T suggested that I put a black spiral on top of each star, as she thought it would look unique.
 After the paint had dried we touched up our panels so they looked nice. Some of my lines were wonky, but I fixed that. On my middle flower one of the petals looks like is floating and I couldn’t fix that, but it looks good anyway.
 On the night of the Matariki concert my Matariki panel was up on stage as a decoration. Now they are going all around the school, then they will be given back to us and we can take our Matariki panels home.