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It was a morning at the beach learning from the master, creating images in the sand with a rake, images that are here today and will be gone tomorrow.

And for 21 pupils of the Kokiri Maori Immersion Primary School at the end of Welcome Bay Road, it sure beat reading, writing and arithmetic.

Rakes instead of paint brushes – pupils of Kokiri School and their sand art. Photos: Supplied.

They'd been invited to the beach by Riki Luttenberger, a friend of a teacher at Kokiri and a friend of Andres Amador, the San Fransiscan sand artist of 13 years who's visiting the Bay of Plenty.

This morning Amador and Luttenberger explained their art to the schoolkids before letting them loose on a blank canvas, or an unspoiled beach at the foot of Mauao.

'They were fascinated and intrigued,” says teacher Kiharoa Nuku. 'They were engaging with their culture in a totally new way.”

Andres Amador is apparently preparing an instruction document on his art for use in schools. 'So we may be seeing some more sand art from Kokiri in the future,” says the teacher.