Melville Intermediate - Pokarekare Ana

Those of you following this blog, and Tamakitoday will know that one of our biggest supporters has been Mr Lamsheds Boys Class in Adelaide Australia. We've been thrilled to network with them this year. Sam one of their students recorded a wonderful version of the traditional Maori Song Pokarekare Ana. Well at this school we've been excited by the news that Sam's been recognised for his efforts. The following is a direct excert from Mr Lamshed's blog about Sam:

"As regular blog visitors would know, Sam has recorded his own arrangement of Pokarekare Ana, a famous Maori song. We thought that Sam did such a great job on this, that we submitted his arrangement to the selection process for the South Australian Public Schools Music Festival. If successful, Sam’s arrangement will be used in the 2010 Choir program and will be performed by around 5000 children over 13 concerts at the Festival Theatre!

We found out, this week, that Pokarekare Ana is one of only 3 songs left in the running in it’s category! We are very proud of Sam and think that his recording deserves a repost!"

To Click on the link to see Sam's wonderful recording, click here.

Melville Intermediate - Touch Highlights 3

Today as part of our continued build up to next weeks Inter-Intermediate Waikato competition both Boys and Girls Melville Intermediate teams played. The Boys who defeated Southwell last week this week played against Peachgrove. Half time the score was 2-3 to Peachgrove and while Melville scored right at the start of the second half Peachgrove were able to win 5-4. The Melville Girls were looking for thier first win of 2009 and duly delievered defeating Peachgrove 2-1. Highlights from that game can be seen by clicking on the video below.

Melville Intermediate - International Blogging Challenge

As you should know our class is competing in the International Blogging Challenge that's run through Miss Wyatt's site in Australia. We couldn't compete in the task last week but this weeks task is right up our alley! The task is to leave a comment on ten new blogs!

Well Room 8 I've put the link through to the blogging challenge and if you click here you can also get the list to all the other schools that are competing in the challenge most of whose sites we've never been onto!

Needs to be completed by all Room 8 students by this Friday. Those of you who have the internet at home can do it from home (although please remember our blogging rules) or before school or at another time when the teacher is present.

This post has been written on “Blog Challenge09 #3” as part of The Blogging Challenge 2009! Visit Mrs. Wyatt’s site http://wyatt67.edublogs.org/ or http://theedublogger.edublogs.org

Melville Intermediate - Story Starter Ideas

I saw this through Allanah K wonderful blog at Moturua's Web Log from Appleby School near Nelson in New Zealand.

It's a resource for story starting for ideas and other random (and it can be quite random) ideas but the potential to be really useful in the classroom. Room 8 will be road testing it tomorrow.

Melville Intermediate - Y7 Camp 2

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Melville Intermediate - Making Damper

At Camp every student was put into a cooking group. These groups had to cook their lunch with consisted of Damper and Sausages. Students were given the material to start a fire, had to prepare it, and it was lit under the supervision of a teacher. They then had to maintain the fire so that they'd be able to successfully cook their dinner.

Melville Intermediate - Camp Video 2

This is part two of challenge one - bush first aid. Students were split into groups and had to pretend a student had a broken leg and then, using material found only in the bush construct a stretcher for that person to be carried to safety. The students who were injured had to be lifted by one or more people in the group between the big log at the base of the main camp hill to a water trough about 50 meters away!

Melville Intermediate - Camp Video 1

Y7 Day Camp 2009 - Challenge One: Bush First Aid.
Problem: One of the members of your group has a broken leg. Can you construct a splint and a stretcher and with the other members of the group carry the injured person to safety? Students had to get into groups of around 4 students and using material only from a section of bush nearby construct a stretcher.

Melville Intermediate - Y7 Camp

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Melville Intermediate - Camp Ruatuna

Today the students from R8, R14 and R2 went to school camp for the day at Camp Ruatuna. Students completed a variety of activities during the day including making bivouacs, bush first aid and going on a water slide. Students also made a fire and cooked their lunch. More detailed work from this event will follow.

Melville Intermediate - No We're not Australian

Mr C's Classroom have done an AWESOME job we're they've answered our "Blogging Around the World" questions online on their fantastic website. Mr C is someone that I have enjoyed networking with over the last year, and someone whose online work has to be seen to be believed. In a fantastic response to our questions Mr C has posted online six or seven videos online to answer our questions, he has however made a slight mistake in identifying ourselves in Room Eight as Australian's.

Our class is most definatly from New Zealand (no offence to our friends across the ditch) and identifying us as Australian is akin to describing say someone from the USA as Canadian or some from Scotland as English! As always we appreciate the support from our friends around the world. If you have to visit one blog today around the world to see a model of how it should be done (online learning, blogging etc) make sure that you visit Mr C's Classroom.

Melville Intermediate - CPA Sasa Rehearsal

This is footage of our Cultural Preforming Arts (CPA) Group rehearsal for the Samoan Sasa.
Later in the year this group has a trip to Australia to perform in competition. This was filmed today, Thursday 12th of March in the School Hall. Our CPA correspondent will update this in full tomorrow.

Melville Intermediate - Touch Vs. Southwell School

Melville Intermediate's build up to the Inter-Intermediate Touch Finals on March 25th continued yesterday with another Tuesday night after school game. The Girls are still searching for their first win of 2009 after losing to the Southwell Mixed team 1-3. Melville Intermediate however dominated against Southwell Boys in the first half taking a 5-1 lead. It was all square in the second meaning Melville claimed their first win of 2009 in touch 6-2. These are some highlights.

Melville Intermediate - 1,000 Milestone

Today in classroom the students were very excited to see the Geo-Globe pass 1,000 visits. We started the blog on February 2nd of this year, so in five weeks and a bit according to the widget we've 'made' 1,000 visitors! We also have google analytics installed on the site too - that credits us with 1,400 visitors, and finally we have a cluster map - that tells us 905. I know that some of these figures represent 'unique' visitor's and some reflect returning visitors so working out the actual 1,000 visitor is nigh on impossible. What Room Eight would like to do is thank EVERYONE who has visited this site, EVERYONE who'se left a comment and EVERYONE who we've networked around the world. Most of the students are blogging this year for the first time and have been thrilled with the response we've had. It really means the 'world' to them.

Melville Intermediate - School Gardens

One of the very special things about Melville Intermediate is our School gardens. In a special area of the school we have not only our famous worm farm but also each classroom has space for a garden. Students are able to grow vegetables and plants in this area. We also have a greenhouse for other plants. Jamie decided to conduct a guided tour of our gardens for you to see.