Thursday, April 30, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Melville Intermediate



This is our students from Room 8's interpretive photography to update themselves for the start of the new term. The objective was to have a sensible shot that was a typical photograph head shot, and then a second shot that was creative within the bounds of the classroom

Melville Intermediate - Peeps Slideshow


These are just some of the pictures in the series that we took when we received from Mossy Oaks Intermediate in Texas a box of Peeps. The students were blown away by the interaction at that a teacher (thanks again Mrs Cranford) would take the time and expense to send something to us for our class to enjoy. It was a wonderful moment in the classroom and a fantastic networking opportunity that we were able to share with the entire school of Melville Intermediate.

Melville Intermediate - a Package from Texas 3



Melville Intermediate - A Package from Texas 2

A more detailed description of this will be provided later but in the meantime we were just so overwhelmed by what we found in the box from Texas! It was filled to the brim with 'Peeps!'
Now in New Zealand we don't have 'Peeps' but the students were able to taste these and were very excited. I can't thank Mrs Cransford, her class and the wonderful students and staff Mossy Oaks Intermediate for this wonderful opportunity and learning experience.

Melville Intermediate - A package from Texas!

Today is a very exciting day in class, we received yesterday a package from Mrs Cranfords Class in While Oaks Texas! The students are thrilled with this as already we've had students come into class and see the package! What does it contain? We will be finding our later today! If you haven't been to a Blog in Texas then click here to see Mrs Cranfords WONDERFUL CLASS!

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Mould Experiment 2

This short video is an update from our current Mould Experiment Scientists Leigh and Keegan from Room 8. As regular followers of this site will be aware on February of this year the students from this class created a series of sandwhiches with various ingredients and then sealed them in plastic bags. That was two monts and four days ago. Today the scientists update you on the progress. They are joined for this by Tim from Room 17 who happened to be in the room when we filmed the presentation.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Term 2 Pictures

Our students have come back to the start of term two with a change of season. Caitlyn and Kalib from Room 8 were sent around the Melville Intermediate with a brief/instruction to take photographs of our school that reflected the change in the season - this is their efforts.


Monday, April 27, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Learn to Speak Khmer 1

Learn to Speak Khmer Lesson 1 - Counting from 1-10 and saying Hello and Goodbye. This lesson was filmed in Room 8 of Melville Intermediate School on Monday 27th April 2009 by Scott. It is presented by Nick and Dylan.

Melville Intermediate - Term Two Starts

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Term Two Preview

Tomorrow, Monday 27th April 2009 all students at Melville Intermediate are returning to school as are most students in New Zealand and Australia, fresh from our Term One holidays. (For our friends in Europe, North America and elsewhere if you don't know the New Zealand term runs from February to December. We have four ten week terms, with two week breaks between. We then have our big Summer holidays.

We have some very exciting sporting events occurring soon. In week three we have our School teams competing in Inter-Intermediate Soccer. Following on from that in week five we have our Girls Rugby team competing in the Waikato competition. We haven't entered this competition for a while and the team is keen to impress - have a look at this video or this one. We have the Winter Olympics team competing for an entire week of events in week eight. We also in week four have our very special school fund raising evening. On top of all this our Basketball teams compete in the weekly competition at the local YMCA.

Online we're looking for the continuation of Miss W's Blogging Challenge. We haven't competed in the last two or so challenges because the students have been away on holidays but were itching to get involved. We learnt about lots of other classrooms and students around the world like Mr Toa's classroom in Shanghai, China and Mr Chamberlains Classroom in Missouri, USA.

We're also eagerly waiting for our Peep's delivery from Mrs Cranfords Class in Texas. Last term we Skyped live with Appleyby School in Nelson, and we also helped Mr Lamsheds Class in Adelaide with their Mihi. We'd love to involve ourselves in this sort of activity and lots more this term - if YOUR class or school is interested in doing something then please let us know, we'd LOVE to hear from you.

Mr Webb and Room 8, Melville Intermeidate School.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Melville Intermediate - ANZAC Day


Today is Saturday 25th April. This is a special day for New Zealand and Australia as this is officially ANZAC Day. ANZAC is an acronym that stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. The day of remembrance is an important day to remember soldiers who have died fighting for our countries. In reference to this our site is only posting this today, with a link to other sites associated by clicking here. The Poppy is official symbol for ANZAC day to raise funds for veteran soldiers and former soldiers.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Term Two Topic

Students at Melville Intermediate return to school along with all other students in New Zealand on Monday the 27th of April. Our Unit of Study for Term Two in Room 8 is:


The sub title for the Unit is "Light Up My World" we will be putting the planning documents for the Units of Work Online for parents and other interested parties to have a look! Also there is a new side bar with various links to check out.

Melville Intermediate - Thank You Matua Tutu


There are many events that students were involved in during term one. Destyn, Raukawa, Liam and Cleveland from Room 8 this term were lucky enough to be involved in Waka Ama racing. This came about because Matua Tutu volunteered his time to help with the boys, to train them and prepare them for the event. If he had not the students would not have had the fantastic opportunity to participate. On the final day of term one, 2009, the School had our usual End of Term Assembly. At that assembly the Boys made a presentation to Matua of a signed photograph of the entire Waka Ama School team. They also read out a letter to him thanking him for his time and support. The letter read as follows:

"Dear Matua Tutu

Thank you for all your time that you spent teaching us how to row in a waka. Mauta you have taught us how to behave in the Waka. We are lucky to have you as our Matua. Without you we wouldn't have even be there. All us enjoyed of Waka Ama training even when we all had sore arms and legs. We all hope that you will come back and teach us next year."

I (Mr Webb) would like to add that without the support of volunteers who give their time so generously a lot of activities that are provided at schools would not be possible - its thanks to people like Matua Tutu that we can offer students the full range of experiences, and I know the students were very greatful for that opportunity.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Mevlille Intermediate - Tuck Shop Prices 2009


I'm always interested from a teacher perspective of comparisons between New Zealand and the way we do things at our school and others internationally and nationally. One of the areas that always interests the students is the food availability at schools!

The list on the left is our Tuck Shop/Canteen Price list for 2009. Students can order from the list in the mornings, and also have an option of a menu to choose from at lunchtime. Prices are in New Zealand dollars, pardon me for my bad stab at the exchange rate but $1NZ is about US$0.60 at the moment. I'll have to check!

We had a major health decision by the former government last year restricted sales of certain items during the week which is why pies are available only on certain days, although the new government has repealed this. Most schools have not gone back to their previous menu's.

Finally although we do have a Tuck Shop/Canteen we have this as an area to sell the food only, its not a specific seated area for students to eat. I'll take some pictures of it/assign a project about it next term.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Thai Students Exchange 4

As part of the International Cultural Exchanges that take place at Melville Intermediate School we have students from around the world attend our school to experience the New Zealand education system. Already this term we've had students from Makuhari College in Japan stay and for the second half of the term we had students from Thailand. In Room 8 we had Tae and Bell who were with the class for two weeks. Just before they left as special guest contributors to the blog Room 8 got them to write their thoughts down!

" I like this school very much, its different from my school. This school is very quiet and students in this school are less than in my school in Thailand. When I study in class my classmates are very friendly and nice - I like studying very much! Yesterday we went to Room 2, the teacher in Room 2 is very kind [Whaea Hayley]. We played and exercised in the Gym. It's very fun. After that we came back to the classroom and studied Maori language. I think Maori Language is not too hard! I like this school very much, everybody in this school is very kind and friendly - I am very happy :)" [Tae]

"First day that I went to this school I thought that this school is so quiet. When I came into the class I felt that everybody was friendly and I have so many friends. When we went to Room 2 we went to the gym and exercised. I played jackstones with my friend. When we got back to Room 2 we learnt Maori Language, then we sang a Maori Song. It was so fun. It's so fun at this school" [Bell]

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Melville Intermedate - Dipity Term One Recount



I'm looking at expanding the displays on this blog so have run dipity for the timeline. Thanks to TimB at Southwell School for the idea/link. If you haven't visited his class blog then have a look at the link here.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Inter Class Touch

In Term One Melville Intermediate held an Inter-Class Touch Rugby Competition to see who was the best Y7 and Y8 Class. In the first in our highlights of Term 1 series Kaiya recounts Room 8 struggle to triumph in the competition!

On the first day of the Touch game we had to play Room 2. We lost our first game because we were getting used to each other and playing touch with other people and getting to know peoples names. In the second game we were getting the hang of things but we were defeated by Room 12. The third game against Room 13 we won because we worked together as a team. We didn't work as individuals. In that game we had only one Girl playing for us (you had to play with four Boys and two Girls but we have only got seven Girls in the class and 19 Boys) who was Arahia so she had to play the game without any breaks. We had to win our other game to get into the semi-finals. We beat Room 17 just and then we had to play against Room 14 to make the play offs. This was our best game of the year probably because we didn't have any Girls available to play so we had to play two players short for the whole game! We still managed to win! Phew! That put us into the Semi-Finals against Room 12 who'd beat us in the second game, this time we played well together and beat them 5-1. Arahia played the whole game as did Vitolina! In the final game of Touch for 2009 we had to play Room 2 again, they were the favourites because they hadn't lost once and had beaten us in the first game. We were really lucky to have Arahia and Vitolina who played all game for us again (without a break!).

Nick scored a try in the first couple of minutes. Destyn then came on from the substitues bench and scored nearly straight away! That was 2-0 to Room 8. Two minutes later I intercepted a pass and ran thirty metres to score. We ended up winning the final game 3-0. Mr Webb promised us a shared lunch for working well as a team and respecting everyone and all the teams that we played against. We can't wait for the term two inter-class competition!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Prashants Term 1 Recount

The following gives you an idea of some of the extra activities that students from Melville Intermediate have the opportunity to be involved with at our school. Students have six hours a week of specialist instructions, three hours a week of specialist technology (Music and Sewing in Term One) and two further hour and half blocks of additional specialist teaching that could range from Rockets to French depending on the option the students choose.

Prashant from Room 8 wrote about the following highlights from Term One:

MUSIC - our first technology was music. Our teacher is Mr Bell. We all played everything. There were drums, keyboards and guitars. On the last day we made a band and played a song. In my group was me, Dylan, Bradyn, and Kaleb. I was playing drums and Dylan was playing guitars and Bradyn was playing guitars also. Kaleb sang a song.
SEWING - In our technology second option we were doing sewing. We had to make a pencil case. We not two pieces of nylon and a zip for our pencil case. We sew the zip onto the nylon to make our pencil case. When we finished making them we got to make cushions.
OPTIONS - In my option it was Cooking. We baked lots of things like sponge rolls and hokey pokey. We also made Louise Cakes and piklets. The last thing that we made was ginger gems.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Thanks for Visiting...


Thanks for visiting our site! Our students are currently on their end of term one holidays in New Zealand, and the teacher in charge of this site is on holiday too! We'll have the students resuming posts here on Monday 27th April and Mr Webb will be back soon to publish the rest of the term one work. Happy Holidays from everyone at Melville Intermediate School.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Learn Samoan 2

This is lesson two in the series entitled 'Lets Learn Samoan'. Last lesson Vitolina and Arahia explained how to count in Samoan from 1 to 10. In today's lesson the students are going to explain the days of the week in Samoan. The students are going to say each word in Samoan and then in English, and repeat them. As a visual prompt they'll also have the words on screen as well. There was no visual prompt in the 'Learn to Speak Swahili' lesson as that language was phonetic! This was filmed by Bailey as cameraman on Wednesday 8th April at Melville Intermediate in Room 8. The days of week in Samoan are: Aso gafua (Monday), aso lua (Tuesday), aso lulu (Wednesday), aso tofi (Thursday), aso aalaile (Friday), aso toangai (Saturday) and aso sa (Sunday).

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Learn Maori

This is the first in our 2009 Learn Maori series of lessons. This is how to count from 1-10 in the Maori Language. The video is hosted by Arahia and Bailey. In this episode Arahia will say the numbers in English and then Maori and Bailey will repeat in Maori. There's a deliberate error in there too! For ten the Maori word is tekau (te-kau)... Bailey says "te-ka" now some of you will know that teka means something else entirely to do with teaching! (sort of!). Watch carefully for this in the video! This was filmed at Melville Intermediate School on Wednesday 8th April. The camera person was Vitolina.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Lets Learn Samoan

This is the first video in our new language series - Let's Learn Samoan! In these series of lessons students from Room 8 will be sharing their culture with our audience. The focus on this lesson is the numbers from one to ten in Samoan. The presenters, Arahia and Vitolina will be saying the numbers from 1 to 10 in English and Samoan, with the words on the screen as well! Filmed at Melville Intermediate on Wednesday 8th April 2009.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Thailand Students Exchange 3

For the last two weeks we've been very lucky to have a group of students from Thailand in our classrooms visiting New Zealand. They are still at school this week (in the first week of our students holiday) and leave later in the week to return to Thailand. All the students were wonderful in their time at our school and especially Bell and Tae who were based in Room 8. Our students were better for having met them and had the experience to be involved in cultural exchanges!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Learn to Speak Swahili

This coming term at Melville Intermediate we will be going full throttle into our video production and projects. At the end of term one we had selected students create various language videos for publishing as guides for the rest of the year. This is 'Learn to Speak Swahili'. We are incredibly fortunate to have a number of cultures at our school. This was produced by the students on Wednesday 8th April 2009.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Final Day of Term One

Today is Thursday the 9th of April. This is the last day of term one in New Zealand. Students break from today for the Easter public holidays (starting with Good Friday tomorrow) and then return to school on Monday 27th April. We have been 'banking' work in the meantime which we will be publishing over the holidays and we will be constanly updating this site. Thank you for all of those who have been regulalrly leaving comments, promising to send us 'Peeps' (more on this later), those who have skyped with us this term, or just viewed the site! We really appreciate the 1,800 of you (according to cluster maps!) or the 2,500 of you (according to google analytics that have visited us. It has been a huge motivating factor in the working of Room 8. We will be getting into 'full gear' next term with our online publishing!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Waka Ama Commands

The following commands are the commands called by the leader of the Melville Intermediate Wakak Ama crew in their competition at Ngaruwhaia.

Kia mau - Wait
Karite - Get Ready
Hoe - Go Fast
Pawa - Stop
Hoe ko mure - Go Back
Tokehi - Paddle and rest

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Rockets

This Thursday during our Y7 Option Classes (in addition to Technology students of Melville Intermediate have an 'Option' Class of a further 3 hours of specialist teaching one of the classes has been construction Rockets - Thursday is launch day, and they are expected to go 100 feet (that's an American reference for our friends) in the air! Of course we'll be there with Camera and Photographs to document! Stay tuned!


Monday, April 6, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Touch Vs, Morrinsville

This is the final game in our highlights series from the Inter-Intermediate Touch Competition on March 25th. Following Peachgrove Intermediate making the final against Maeroa Intermediate the teams who finished second in the semi-finals had to play against each other for third and fourth. This was Melville Intermediate and Morrinsville Intermediate. Jacob was on hand to film the highlights from the game. Filmed at Swarbrick Park (thanks Frankton Primary School for letting us charge up the camera!).

Melville Intermediate - Touch Vs. Peachgrove

On 25th March Melville Intermediate competed in the 2009 Girls Touch Finals. Wins against Matamata Intermediate, Te Awamutu Intermediate and Berkley saw Melville have a last game against the ten time winners of the competition Maeroa Intermediate. Maeroa won meaning that Melville Intermediate had to play Peachgrove Intermediate in the semi-final. Aria scored (before the cameras could even be set up!) to give Melville a 1-0 lead, these highlights are of the rest of the game!

Following this game Peachgrove advanced to the finals where they played Maeroa Intermediate, who have won the Girls Touch Titles for an incredible 10 years. To get there they'd had to defeat Morrinsville Intermediate. This other semi-final was an unbelieveable game. Both teams were tied after 20 minutes and then a drop off occurred where both teams lost three players taking the game to a 3 on 3. Even then Maeroa and Morrinsville could be barely seperated with Maeroa scoring near the end.

The final between Peachgrove and Maeroa was one way traffic with Peachgrove Girl's winning 5-1. To cap off an incredible day for the school they'd also won a nail biter earlier when their Boys had defeated Tokoroa Intermdiate 3-2 with the last play of the game! As for Melville Intermediate following this game they had a play off for 3rd/4th the highlights of that game will be posted online tomorrow!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Thailand Students Exchange 2

Melville Intermediate - Thailand Students Exchange


At Melville Intermediate presently were one week through a two week exchange. We have students from Thailand staying with us in each of the Y7 Classrooms, learning about english and New Zealand.

Each Y7 Class has been carrying out a cultural exchange with the students, these are pictures from them!

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Skyping with Appleby School

This animation is a little special as its a result of a collaboration that took place last week between Melville Intermediate and students from Appleby School in Nelson. Their wonderful site can be contacted by clicking here. During the day we used Skype to contact their class and Nick received instructions of how to create a pivot animation. He'd never used the program before but as a result of the tutoring that he received he was able to create his own animation and then also scaffold (teach) Scott from our classroom! Our wonderful thanks again to Alanahk and her class!

Nick wrote the following about the Skype Chat:
"It was a great experience Skyping with a school in Nelson. I learnt to do animations on pivot. George was a great helper. I learnt some skills and will pass them onto other classmates, in my class. Pivot is Fun!"

Friday, April 3, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Inter-Intermediate Art

On Tuesday 31st March five students from Melville Intermediate School attended the Inter-Intermediate School Arts Day that was held at Maeroa Intermediate. Students took part in activities such as manu tuku tuku (Maori Kites), painting on canvas, and making a rubbish sculpture to name a few! Ms. Wilson who attended the day said Melville Intermediate students were "outstanding in their creativity, attitude and ability to co-operate and work with other." Amos, one of the Melville Intermediate students who attended said "the day was awesome - I learned (about) lots of different kinds of art." The completed art works are to be presented to the childrens ward at the Waikato Hospital. We look forward to being part of this event againt next year.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Melville Intermediate - Visit Chorlton Park!

If you have not done so already you really, really need to visit the Y2 Blog at Chorlton Park School, in Manchester, England. Y2 is not a level that you'd necessairly associate with blogging but you couldn't be more wrong. Mr Sloan and his class have a wonderful site and are always putting themselves out there with their presentations. If you are having a slighty "blah" teaching day then look no further than their Left and Right dance video - absolutely guarnteed to bring a smile to your face! A fantastic blog with lots of innovative and creative ideas! Well worth a look!

Melville Intermediate - Staff Vs. Pupil Touch Rugby

Today the annual Staff vs. Pupil Touch rugby game took place at Melville Intermediate. This might have been close in previous years but in 2009 it was all one way traffic. The staff took on the Boys in the first half of the 20 minute game smiting them 4-0. In the second the one way traffic continued with the staff racking up another 3 tries to take the game 7-0. A proud moment indeed.