To extend on our Matariki celebrations, we had a special visit one afternoon from Barney – a knowledgeable whanau member of Buckle My Shoe. He wanted to share his skills of weaving with flax and provide our little ones with the opportunity to have a go.

When Barney arrived at the centre, our little ones noticed that he was holding onto a bunch of flowers. But these flowers were not your ordinary flowers. They looked different and after moving closer, they saw that these flowers had been woven. Wow!

Intrigued and curious, they sat down and were given a piece of flax to start exploring. Barney demonstrated to them how to split the flax into four pieces and encouraged them to have a go. This task was quite a challenging one but with a bit of support and close guidance, our little ones were able to split their flax into four pieces using their strong finger muscles.

He then demonstrated how to weave – by moving the pieces under and over each other. Coordinating the pieces and remembering the sequence of “under, over, under, over” required a lot of patience, concentration and focus. But our little ones sure did give it a shot.

Very soon Alize – one of our wonderful family members came in and also took on the role of teacher, supporting our little ones to persevere with their flax weaving.

Although many of our little ones had explored paper weaving before, working with flax was a whole new experience. Flax as a material can be quite stiff and so our little ones had to really engage their finger muscles and hand-eye coordination to get the flax to move where they wanted it to go.

Throughout this learning experience, discussions were had about special rituals and cultural values of working with flax. Our little ones learnt that before picking flax, a special karakia (prayer) is said and that when the flax is cut, it is cut on the diagonal - away from the plant’s heart. This is because people are kaitiaki (guardians) of the natural world and we need to look after all living things.

Another thing to note was around the different parts of the harakeke (flax) plant, in particular which parts were okay to pick and which parts weren’t. This is important because Maori believe that the harakeke plant represents whanau (family). The rito (shoot) is the child and it is protectively surrounded by the awhi rito (parents) therefore only outer layers are cut.

It was also important to share with our tamariki what happens to the leftover flax. Barney explained that he would place the left over pieces of flax at the base of his flax plant, to help the plant grow further. 😊

A need in Te Whariki, the NZ Early Childhood curriculum states that “All children are given the opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding of the cultural heritages of the partners to Te Tiriti o Waitangi | Treaty of Waitangi”. This flax weaving experiences provides a fun and hands on way to do this.