Exploring the legends of Matariki

There are lots of different legends about the stars of Matariki but today we explored the korero of "The Seven Fish"
We dramatised this story each taking a role as either the audience,an ika( fish) ,Tataraimaka ( the giant fisherman) or Tane the God of Light.
The legend we dramatised went like this....

Long,long ago a mother ika told her tamariki to keep close to the rocks and not swim out into the open sea where it was dangerous and where Tataraimaka ,a giant was out fishing.
One day however they forgot their mother's warning and swam out into the deep sea. Then there was a major disaster when the seven ika were caught in the net of Tataraimaka.
Tane the God of Light was looking down on the ika and felt sorry for them so he pulled the net away from Tataraimaka and pulled it into the sky .
The seven ika are now called matariki and you can see matariki in early June.The ingoa/names of the six stars are Toheti,Toheta,Tupuanuku,Tupuarangi,Ururangi and Waipuna-a-rangi. One star remains nameless so that if you are ever feeling lonely you can put your own ingoa on the seventh star so it always remains close to you.