The Story of Wairaka Rock

In Term 3, Rua looked at one of our local stories - the legend of Hau and Wairaka. This story explains the origins of Wairaka Rock which is located around the coast from the Pukerua Bay foreshore. 

There are several variations on the story. The children were aware that traditional stories can have more than one version from reading the Matariki story in Term 2. Rather than decide on one 'right' version, we looked at the variations and the children decided how they wanted to retell the story.

The students retold the story verbally and had great fun acting it out. Then they planned their story in four simple pictures. Our focus was on developing a story with a beginning, middle and end.

We continued to retell the story verbally as the children worked on their written versions. The aim was to encourage them to use the language features like similes, onomatopoeia and direct speech that we'd been learning about during the term.

We even tried a drama technique called 'hot seating'. Different students pretended to be a character from the story and sat in the 'hot seat.' We then asked them tricky questions regarding their feelings about the events and their motivation for acting the way they did. The children really got into this exercise and by the end we had some great performances by boys as the heroine Wairaka and girls as the hero Hau. It was a fantastic way to add depth to the children's writing.



The Story of Wairaka Rock by Rua 2017 from Leeanne Arnold on Vimeo.

Finally, the students designed Wearable Arts costumes, inspired by the story. We shared these at the final assembly of the term.

From concept to execution - the students worked hard to turn their ideas into reality. We were so lucky to have five wonderful mums and a fabulous teacher aide who worked with the children over several weeks on these projects. Thank you again for your help.