Matariki 2025
30 May 2025 - 30 June 2025
Region(s): Nationwide
Type(s): national Events
Celebrate Matariki, the Māori new year. It is a time of renewal and celebration in Aotearoa New Zealand that begins with the rising of the Matariki star cluster. The public holiday this year is on 20 June.
Matariki – star associations
In te ao Māori, each of the whetū in the Matariki star cluster has an association with an aspect of wellbeing and the environment.
See the Matariki website from the Manatū Taonga – Ministry for Culture & Heritage for event listings, information about the importance of Matariki and more.
We also recommend checking out what your local council is doing.
Related content
For more on Matariki check out the Hub’s article The Matariki star cluster.
Explore the wide range of resources we have on Matariki in our a handy article Te Kāhui o Matariki – introduction.
The webinar Picturebooks for Matariki support teachers to deepen our students and our own understanding of Matariki. The collection Matariki picture books and science contains the resources discussed during this webinar.
See our collection Matariki and Environment Aotearoa 2022 – this uses Te kāhui o Matariki to explore whetū and their domains.
Discover more about Mātauranga Māori and science and explore the range of resources under our mātauranga Māori topic.
Activity ideas
Naming the whetū in te kāhui o Matariki uses online and/or paper-based resources to identify and label the nine whetū in Matariki and learn about their associations with wellbeing and the environment.
Use this activity to teach some of the literacy components required to effectively interpret the infographics used in the Environment Aotearoa 2022 report.
Use this cross-curricular activity to explore written and visual components of the Environment Aotearoa 2022 report’s Matariki representations. Great inspiration for poetry and art!
Constellations in the night sky explores star clusters and constellations and cultural legends about them.
Useful links
Dr Rangi Matamua, a leading expert on Matariki and Māori astronomy, on what it means – and the science that underpins it, How Matariki will connect us all.
Read this blog post on the Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor website Aotearoa’s first mātauranga-based holiday by Dr Pauline Harris which explains how the Matariki holiday dates were calculated.
Why do we plant trees at Matariki? is an article from Trees that Count looking at where this idea comes from. See if you can find a local tree planting event to participate in this coming June.
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