Melville Intermediate - Bone Carving Explanation

Those of you who have been following our page will know that we have been preparing a very special present for the students from Vonslid School in Denmark.  They sent us a wonderful gift of T-Shirts that were related to Handball,  the national sport of Denmark.  In return we thought long and hard about what we could send them.  As Maori culture is very important to our school, Melville Intermediate employs Matua Peter, and one of his specialities is Bone Carving.  We've been working for a week and a half preparing the gift, working through the stages and this video explains the designs we've created and the process that's been gone through.  This is video one of two, filmed by Levi from Room Five on Tuesday 15th May 2012.

Melville Intermediate - A Gift From Denmark

Today in class we had a special, special occasion.  We knew that a parcel was on its way from the staff and students at Vonsild School in Denmark.  We were hoping that this would arrive before the start of the school holidays on Thursday, and today it arrived! You can read about the original post and see the parcel in Denmark before it leaves by clicking on the link here.  The photo's in this sideshow were taken as we examined the parcel and passed it around the students before opening it and seeing what was inside! It's inspired us with our learning because we've been learning about Denmark, and their national sport which is Handball (which is completely different from what we in New Zealand think about 'Handball').  We're going to post again about this before the end of term but wanted to thank again our friends from Denmark for the start of such a wonderful learning experience.
Gift from Vonsild School Denmark on PhotoPeach

Melville Intermediate - What we know about Denmark & the USA

As our friends in the United States of America and Europe have returned to school we thought that it would be a good time to recap about our students knowledge of other countries.   One of the connections that we were lucky enough to make last year was with Vonslid School in Denmark, they really have some of the best online work that you will ever see from that side of the world and its always very interesting to see their views on things.  They have many different levels of schooling and work but a great place to start is on their main English class page which you can click on and visit here.  Today we grabbed a camera found some students who were available in this case Shayne and Hayze (who is one of our Maori speakers online) and asked them to recall facts about Denmark.

Denmark: Shayne and Hayze from myles webb on Vimeo.

Other than New Zealand the second most visits that we receive is from the USA.   Even though its far away it has a huge cultural influence on us, we're about to start Skyping again with classrooms in the USA, since our knowledge about Denmark went so well we choose two outstanding pupils, Bradley and Mitchell and asked for a few short words about their knowledge of the USA

R8 Knowledge - USA: Bradley and Mitchell from myles webb on Vimeo.

Finally since this had worked so well we took both and combined them with the students from Room Eight that were in music extension preparing for our end of term concert next week.   Ronnie and Jess spoke from Room 12 spoke to them in the music room - Lana, Kelly, Shania and Shaylee.

Untitled from myles webb on Vimeo.

Melville Intermediate - Handball in New Zealand

NZ Handball Demo for Denmark from myles webb on Vimeo.

One of the sites that we've really enjoyed visiting recently has been Vonslid School Blog in Denmark, it caused us to research Denmark because we discovered that we didn't know very much about it as a country. One of our students, Lana created a slideshow about the comparison between Denmark and New Zealand. She thought that she found that Soccer was the national sport of Denmark, apparently its Handball! This brought much mirth to Room Eight as Handball is a game played by some students at interval and lunch break, but is for fun only. We've actually researched Handball the sport, and its of course quite different from New Zealand Handball - this video was filmed by Mitchell and Kris and demonstrates what most New Zealanders think 'Handball' is.

Melville Intermediate - Denmark compared to New Zealand

Lana slideshowinternet

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