Salt dough maori pendants

For our Maori lessons, Mrs. Mansfield has been teaching us about traditional maori pendants. We learnt about the significance of the valuable traditional jewellery, which was usually made from bone or greenstone. We also learnt about some of the more common symbols used in the art form including, the Koru, Tiki and Matua. Less well known were the Toki, Pikorua, Kowhaiwhai, Torea, Manaia and Taniwha. 
On Thursday we made our very own salt dough pendants copying the symbols we had learnt about. We made the salt dough using this recipe:

SALT DOUGH
Salt dough can be used like clay and baked in the oven until hard. 

YOU WILL NEED:
300g/3 cups of plain flour
300g/2 cups of salt

Wooden spoon
Large bowl
30 ml/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
200 ml/1 cup water

METHOD:
1. Put the flour and salt into a large bowl.

2. Add half of the water slowly to the flour and salt mixture, mixing thoroughly so there are no lumps. 

3. Add the oil together with the second half of the water, and mix to form a dough. Also, you can add food colouring to the water at this stage, if you want to colour your dough.

4. Knead the dough until it is smooth and firm.

5. When it is ready you can use it straight away or store it in an airtight container in the fridge.

Hints:

Try to make your shapes rounded and regular sized – thin pieces will break off easily and shapes that have different sized bits won’t cook evenly. 
Bake your salt dough shapes in a cool oven (about 100 degC/225 degF). 
The time required will depend on the size of your piece. Turn carefully part way through cooking. 
When finished, you could paint or varnish to decorate.

We had a great time making our maori pendants. Thank you Mrs. Mansfield for teaching us about Maori culture and Te Reo.