As the country prepares to celebrate our second Matariki public holiday and te mātahi o te tau, the new year, we invite educators from all areas to consider reaching for picturebooks to deepen our students and our own understanding of this significant time.

In this webinar Greta Dromgool will be joined by picturebook expert Associate Professor Nicola Daly (co-director of the Waikato Picturebook Research Unit at the University of Waikato) to discuss some of her research into bilingual picturebooks and to share the rich opportunities picturebooks offer our teaching and learning around Matariki.

This session will be valuable for all educators as the content links strongly to science and literacy in the New Zealand curriculum and upholds mana ōrite mō te mātauranga Māori.

Throughout the presentation we will share free digital articles, videos and activities to support teachers with the connected science concepts.

Please note that Greta and Nicola are both of Pākehā descent.

We look forward to you joining us.

Register here

During the webinar we'll be live tweeting summarised points with the hashtags #SLH_webinar and #SLH_PLD on our Twitter feed.

Joining the webinar

Follow these simple steps to join our webinar:

  1. Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android by clicking on the link https://waikato.zoom.us/j/359736528 and following the instructions. You can also access Zoom on your phone, just follow the prompts.
  2. Find the chat box located in the toolbar at the bottom of your screen. You may need to access this by clicking on ‘More’.
  3. Using the chat box, introduce yourself, where you teach and, if you are in a group, how many people are there.
  4. Set up your screen for optimal viewing. If you’re using a mobile device, you may wish to view in landscape. We recommend selecting a thumbnail view of the presenters – this way you can easily see what is being shared on the screen.

Then you can:

  1. watch, listen and respond via chat to the presentation and discussion
  2. ask questions using the chat box at any time

The Science Learning Hub team will be there to support you and answer questions.

Related content

You may also enjoy our previous webinar with Nicola Daly Science through picturebooks or the following recorded sessions focussed on literacy:

For information about Matariki the article The Matariki star cluster is a great place to start. Scroll down to find links to related activities and resources.

We also have a recorded webinar exploring Te Kāhui o Matariki and the environment as a guiding framework for teaching and learning.

A wide range of resources can be found under our Astronomy and Mātauranga Māori topics.

Useful links

Have a look at these picture book collections linking to a variety of curriculum areas:

Listen to Dr Nicola Daly and Dr Dianne Forbes in this RadioNZ interview from August 2021 about the value of picture books.

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