Tamak Int - Maori Haka

Another Highlight from the 2008 Tamaki Idol Cultural Festival. This is Leander House's Boys Haka, lead by Wiremu from Room 14. This is a Tainui Haka. It was filmed during the schools Cultural Festival on December 5th at Tamaki Intermediate School Hall. It was filmed by Victor.

Tamaki Int - Samoan Girls Solo

This is another in the continuing series of Haka/Waiata Cultural Festival 2008 Highlights. This is the Solo Act from Leander House, whose students wear the Green co loured uniforms at Tamaki Intermediate School. Look carefully at the Girl doing the dance and see whether you recognise her from our langauge video... of couse its Gaifo from the 'Learn to Speak Samoan Video's!'. She was performing a traditional Samoan Dance for the contest. From Tamaki Intermediate School on Friday 5th December 2008 by Victor.

Tamaki Int- Cook Island Dancing Individual.

This footage is additional footage from our 2008 school cultural festival - Haka/Waiata. This is one of the solo acts that was compulsory for each of the four houses to have. This is Katrina's solo Cook Island Dance. Katrina was a member of our schools Cook Island group that took part in the School trip to Raratonga in 2008 (and are scheduled to go again in 2009). Filmed at the 2008 Tamaki Intermediate Haka Waiata Festival which was held at our School Hall on Friday 5th December 2008. Filmed by Victor.

Tamaki Int - Karanaga

A Karanga is a Maori welcome. This footage from our cultural festival is of the Karanga performed by Orpheus House. Moli and Keliah won best Girls performer as a result of this effort.

Tamaki Int. - Merry Christmas From Tamaki Today

After over three hundred posts, nearly 5,000 visits to this blog - over 23,000 views of material related to this blog.... THIS... THIS IS THE FINAL 'OFFICIAL' POST of tamakitoday.blogspot.com for 2008!

On the final day of school I grabbed the camera and a group of students who have been heavily involved in our 2008 Tamakitoday work - Sabrina, Moli, Zecillia, Sosaia, Gaifo, and Joshua wanted to say an impromptu goodbye to all the viewers and thank you all for the contribution that you have made to the success of this blog.

So all the students of Room Six from Tamaki Intermediate School in Auckland, New Zealand wish each and everyone one of you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

Tamaki Int - Indian Girls Dance

These highlights are from our 2008 Cultural Festival. This is Leander House's Girls Group. It was led by Emma from Room Seven. The students rehearsed for this act extensively by themselves. The group was performing a traditional Indian Dance. It was filmed by Victor on Friday December 5th 2008.

Tamaki Int - Blog Year in Review

Now that we've just broken for the holiday we'd thought we'd take some time to review some of the highlights from tamakitoday and the 2008 Room Six class blog. This blog was started as part of our schools involvement in the EHSAS project (Extending High Standards Across Schools). Our school is part of the Tamaki Cluster of Schools in Auckland New Zealand. You can visit our offical cluster site by clicking here.

Our literacy cycle which is in the left hand side bar, is an example of some of the collaborative work that we've completed. Although the academic year in New Zealand starts in late Janurary we didn't post our first 2008 online work until mid March 2008 with our Virtual Tour of School Video... March saw the premier of our 'Learn to Speak Samoan' Series of Language lessons. These started as a vechile to get ESOL (English as a Second Language) students involved in our online work and have expanded into Learn to Speak Maori, Learn to Speak Tongan and Learn to Speak Fijian.

Our most popular video at this point was 'Learn to Speak Samoan Lesson Two'. This was featured on a Professional development site as an example of intergrating ICT in the Classroom, and this was our first recoginiton of our site. We were very excited by this first recoginition. We've also been featured on other sites such as this Massey Tech.

By May we were publishing 'full steam' as we were constantly brainstorming ideas relating our students culture and material that we could publish online. We were also very happy with the numbers of visitors that we were starting to have. By June we'd had 820 visitors to this site, which was just over three months into our existance. This is when we created our 'Best Rugby Girls Tackles' video which is now our number one viewed material... this has had our 3,000 views and continues to climb all the time...

By August the Rugby season may have finished but we were working hard at our Quest Production which we were able to post material of online. The Y8 students went to Camp on Camp Bentzon, Kawau Island. Although not everyone could attend the brilliant thing was by going with our cameras meant we could share the experience with those who couldnt make it.

September saw our Science Fair, the big AIMS Tournament Trip to Tauranga for our Girls Basketball team competing in the National Finals. Tamaktitoday saw our 2,000 visitor come through the door and our 8,000 view of our teachertube material (six months after our start!)
October saw our 2,500 visitor and Learn to Speak Samoan saw its 20th Episode...

October saw our Learn to Sasa/International Sasa work that involved Mister P Class in the UK, Grey Lynn Primary School and Mr C's Page in the USA. The final product was produced for the Cluster Film Festival which was an absolute highlight of the year.

We celebrated 4,000 visits as of December 1st - nine months after we have started. The massive cultural festival Haka Waiata took place, as we celebrated a major achievement with our 2008 Edublog nomination for best use of Video/Visual. We finished the year with our 2008 Tamaki Idol Talent Quest... as well as having our 4,800 visitor on December 20th. Its been an absolutely amazing 2008 and its not finished yet!

Tamak Int - Tamaki Idol 2008 R1 Band

On the last day of School for 2008 students of Tamaki Intermediate had their 2008 talent quest which is called 'Tamak Idol'. Students had to volunteer to perform an act with some degree of talent. The students in this group were the R1 Band students who performed "Aint No Mountain High Enough". The band includes Laura and Ma'ata who are the singers, Kuapquashe on gituar and Lem is the amazing drummer! The act went down really well on the day and was a great way for students of Tamaki Intermediate School to bid farewell to the year!

Tamaki Int - Tamaki Idol Highlights - R6 Boys

This was one of the star acts of the 2008 Tamaki Idol Competition, a group of Boys from Room Six, Heke, John, Douglas and Alex singing. Filmed by Mereana on the last day of School Tuesday 16th December 2008.

Tamaki Int - Calliope Karanga

Calliope Karanga. This is Calliope House's Opening Karanga (Maori Welcome) for the 2008 Haka Waiata Competition. The Karanga is performed mainly by Laura who is featured also significantly on our Y7 Tamaki Intermediate School blog - tamakitales. Again with all the other footage from our Cultural Show this is from December 5th. Calliope is the 'Red' house from our school hence the colours of the uniforms. Filmed by Victor. Happy Holidays to you all!

Tamaki Int- Samoan Sasa Cultural Festival

This is the Samoan Sasa from Achilles House (Yellow) in the 2008 Tamaki Intermediate School Haka/Waiata Festival. Each house had to have a mass item that included all members of the house participating. In the Sasa everyone has to follow the beat or commands of the leaders. The Sasa is being co-lead by John from Room Six who also won the award for best male at the cultural festival. A Sasa is basically a slap dance where students use their hands to create a beat. The students themselves created the Sasa for this competition and taught themselves with the teachers supervising. Filmed by Victor at Tamaki Intermediate School Hall on Friday 5th December 2008.

Tamak Intermediate - Maori Haka

This footage from our 2008 Haka/Waiata Cultural Festival is footage of the Achilles Boys Haka but also includes the Best Male Performer for 2008, John from Room Six. This was filmed on Friday 5th December 2008 at Tamaki Intermediate School by Victor. The Haka is a Maori Haka.

Tamaki Int - Prize Giving Report

Yesterday Tamaki Intermediate School had our 2008 Prize Giving. During the Assembly we have all the major awards given for the year. Victor was on hand to record the event, and a full video of the event will be shown later. Congratulations to all the winners on the day.

Today we have a special event in that we have the 2008 Tamaki Idol Competition. Our talent quest is taking place in the School Hall from 11:00am today. A full schedule of the acts and footage of all acts will be online shortly.

Some Tamakitoday presenters received significant recognition at the School Prize Giving. Sosaia who presented Netball reports earlier in the Year was named as Netballer of the Year. The Rugby Cup for player of the year went to Meliame (who'se tackle was rated best from our 'Best 8 hits of the year video). Cecelia who was our Basketball correspondent won both the Classroom Prize and Involvement in Sport Cup. Moli won the Senior Teachers Trophy for Sportsmanship and Lasini won the Outstanding Achievement in Sports Award.

Tamaki Int - Haka/Waiata Best Solo Female

This is Christine from Achilles House with her combination Tongan/Samoan dance. This was judged best individual act at the 2008 Tamaki Intermediate School Haka/Waiata Festival. Filmed at School on Friday 5th December 2008. Students are preparing a detailed description of this act as part of their recount writing and this description will be updated when completed.

Tamaki Int. - Goodbye from tamakitoday...

This is the final week of school for students at Tamaki Intermediate School. Monday we have our 2008 School Prize Giving. This is the single most important assembly of the year. Students will be awarded prizes ranging from School Dux (best academic student) to Sports person of the year. Overall House of the Year will also be awarded, Orpheus House being white hot favourites following their Haka/Waiata Competition win, Athletics win and dominating three out of the four terms of competition. This event will be filmed in detail and posted online as soon as possible after the actual event.

Tues is the final official day of school. Students will receive their 2008 year book - Te Rama magazine, and the 2008 Tamaki Idol Competition will take place. There are ten students acts and two teacher acts competing for the 2008 title.

All of the acts will be filmed in full and posted over the christmas break... for those of you unaware students in New Zealand will be on Christmas break from next week until the first week in February (although there is some slight variation in this depending on the school). All our regular video contributors and busy filming their final releases in each series (Learn to Speak Samoan is up to lesson 25 for instance!) these in some cases will include Christmas and holidays special that will posted over the holidays.

Just as school finishes on Tuesday, and this week also marks the last official week of tamakitoday.blogspot.com.

We only started regularly blogging in March and since then the students are absolutely thrilled with the responses and what we've been able to achieve. We've had nearly 4,500 visitors to this site! We've had well over 20,000 views of our material online and we're in the top ten worldwide for numerous google searches. We've had so many highlights this year, being nominated for an Edublog Award, the Tamaki Film Festival, networking with wonderful people like Mister C's Classroom, Mister P, Mrs She's class at Point England School and Toa's Troops in China... the list goes on and on.

To each and everyone one of you thank you your support has meant so much to the students in Room Six of Tamaki Intermediate School.

This also marks the end of my (Mr Webb's) time at Tamaki Intermediate as after work here for just over six years I have decided to move cities and leave Auckland for Hamilton. We will continue to post throughout the holidays as we have a stack load of material to go through but the students themselves who have been the heart and soul of this online project will obviously be unable to reply to any posts that you make.

Thank you once again.

Mr Webb and the students of Room Six
Tamaki Intermediate School, Auckland, New Zealand.

Tamaki Idol Auditions 2

These are the second series of highlights from the auditions from our 2008 Tamaki Idol Talent Show. The big show will take place next Tuesday in the School Hall. There will be ten student acts and two teacher acts performing for the 2008 title. Filmed on Thursday 11th December 2008 in the Tamaki Intermediate School Music Room.

Tamaki Int - Girls Maypole Dance

This item was judged best item at the 2008 Haka Waiata Cultural Festival. Its the Girls from Orpheus House doing an English Maypole Dance. This as with all other highlights in the series was filmed by Victor from Room Six on Friday 5th December 2008 at Tamaki Intermediate School.

Tamaki Int - Tamaki Idol 2008 Auditions! Part 1

Each year at Tamaki Intermediate School we finish off the year with our Tamaki Idol auditions for our school talent quest. This year the students had thirty seconds to introduce themselves to the judges and perform for the big show next Tuesday. These are some of the highlights of some of the students that auditioned on Thursday in the Music Room!

Tamaki Int - Blogroll Clearance

I managed to do a bit of inadvertant spring cleaning tonight - I managed to delete the blogroll of blogs Room Six follows... I replaced all the blogs that I could think of off the top of my head, but if we've been regularly following your site could you please let us know and drop us a line and we'll reinstate you! A thousand apoligies if that was you, and if you WOULD like to be included in our blogroll just leave us a comment, and we'll comment back!

On the administration side of things Mr Webb will from now of post as "NZWaikato" as opposed to tamakitoday. There's been a bit of behind the scenes changes which you will be made aware of all slightly later. A final reminder and we have said this before but please remember that students in New Zealand go on holiday from next week, although the date varies from School to school this is our end of year break. Tamaki Intermediate School will close its doors for 2008 on Tuesday 16th December 2008. Those of you who want exchanges completed before then will need to do so! Our regular video columnists will all be completing their last posts which will appear during December/January...

Tamaki Int - Haka Waiata Catergory Winners

This is the winning mass item from Leander House in the 2008 Haka Waiata festival. Filmed at Tamaki Intermediate School on Friday 5th December 2008. Leander were the 2007 winners and they are the green house at our school. Filmed by Victor.

Tamaki Int - Learn to Speak Samoan 25

With the Christmas Season upon us its time to celebrate - its Learn to Speak Samoan Lesson 25 with a 'festive' flavor.

This lesson is focused on phrases associated with Christmas, family and celebration. The lesson is presented by Sideanna (Reindeer Antlers) and Gaifo (Santa Hat). The words will appear on screen in England and Samoan and will be spoken by the students in Samoan and then repeated in English. This lesson was filmed at Tamaki Intermediate School on Wednesday 10th December 2008. And features one of the worst 'Christmas Cracker' jokes - ever!

Tamaki Int - Tongan/Samoan Boys Dance

This is another in the series of cultural festival highlights. Today we're focusing on the winners in the Boys section. This is a combination Samoan slap dance and Tongan stick dance. The winning house in our 2008 Haka Waiata Cultural festival was Orpheus House (Blue). Students were filmed by Victor on Friday 5th December 2008. A detailed description will be prepared by the students and then uploaded.

Tamaki Int - Cook Islands Dancing

This video is the first in our series of winners of the 2008 Haka/Waiata Festival. Each of the four houses at Tamaki Intermediate School had to have a 'Mixed' item in the contest that involved up to ten students of Mixed Gender. The winners of this part of the competition were Calliope House (Red) with their Cook Island Dance Group. Many of you saw the rehearsal performance of this earlier in the week, although you can see the students adapted the final version, and the costumes have required a lot of work. A detailed description of this dance is being prepared by the students and will be posted in two days. As with the rest of the highlights from this festival they were filmed by Victor in the Tamaki Intermediate School Hall on Friday 5th December 2008.

Tamaki Int - Samoan Girls Dance 1

This footage is of the 2008 Haka/Waiata Cultural Festival held at Tamaki Intermediate School on Friday 5th December 2008. It was filmed by Victor from Room Six. This dance is a traditional Samoan Girls Dance. The house that performed this dance is Achilles (Yellow). Its one of the five acts that their house performed on the day. As we've mentioned all other footage was rehearsals - this is students in their full competition uniforms.

Tamaki Int - Haka Waiata 2008 Results

Phew! What a day, Friday saw the 2008 Tamaki Intermediate School Cultural Festival- Haka/Waiata. No more dress rehearsals or preparation, all the students in full costume for the event! The competition between Tamaki Intermediates four houses Leander (Green), Calliope (Red), Orpheus (Blue) and Achilles (Yellow) was the closet that its ever been!

Orpheus won best Girls Group, Boys Group and Girls Leadership. Achilles won best Boys Leadership and best Girls Item. Calliope won best Mixed Group Item and Leander won best Mass Item.

In the end it came down to the closet of margins with Orpheus coming first and winning, Achilles taking the runners up spot and taking second and Calliope third and Leander 4th.

Tamakitoday was there in force and we recorded every moment of it from the introductions to the judges decisions... 20 acts in full that will be released here over the course of the next month or so. We'll be starting with the winning items of each of the catergories and include all the dances, haka's, waiata and items in the following weeks.

Tamaki Int - Cook Island Dancing 5

This is Calliope (Red) House's final performance for our Cultural Festival. The students are 12/13 and are performing a traditional Cook Island Dance. A detailed description of this video is being prepared by the students and will be updated shortly. Filmed at Tamaki Intermediate Thursday 4th December 2008.

Tamaki Int - Maori Haka

Over the last week we've allowed you to follow the progress of the Boys Maori Haka (challenge/war dance) from Leander House. Yesterday on Thursday 4th December we had our final dress rehearsal for the big Cultural Festival (which takes place later today). The show was performed for some of our local primary schools as the crowd, some of whose students will be at this school next year. This is still a work in progress. Filmed by Victor at Tamaki Intermediate December 4th.

Tamaki Int - Haka/Waiata Cultural Festival 3

This is Orpheus House. Orpheus house students wear 'blue' uniforms. This is the rehearsal for our Cultural Festival held at Tamaki Intermediate on Wednesday 3rd December. The full show was a 15 minute presentation that included five separate cultures of students at Tamaki Intermediate School. A full description of this will be updated by students tomorrow. See if you can spot Moli and Lelani from Learn to Speak Fijian in these videos!

Tamaki Int. - Haka/Waiata 3

This is Leander House. Leander house is the the 'green' house at our school. This is the house whose students won the 2007 cultural festival. The students had 15 minutes to perform five separate acts that reflect the culture of the students at Tamaki Intermediate School. This house for instance chose to have a Indian opening dance, a Samoan Solo dance (Gaifo from the Learn to Speak Samoan videos no less!), a Cook Island Mixed Group, a Maori Boys Haka (War Dance/Challenge) and finished with a mass item involving all studnets which was a Tongan item. Performed by the students at Tamaki Intermediate in our School Hall on Wednesday 3rd December 2008. This is the first dress rehearsal. Filmed by Evandah and Sosaia.

Tamaki Int. - Haka/Waiata Rehearsal 2

These are the highlights from Achilles House. Achilles house is the Yellow house at our school. The rehearsal is the first chance for our students to show their cultural act. Each house had to have five separate acts as a whole for their cultural performance, that had to reflect the culture of the students at our school. Filmed by Mereana and Sosaia at Tamaki Intermediate School Hall on Wednesday 3rd December 2008. A more detailed description is being prepared by the students and will be posted tomorrow.

Tamaki Int - Haka/Waiata Cultural Festival 1

Today we had our first part of the 2008 Haka/Waiata Festival. Today's performance, the first of three was an opportunity for our students to see the other three houses at school perform. Students are in a house of four (Achilles - Yellow, Orpheus - Blue, Calliope - Red and Leander - Green). Over the next three days there are the big performances, culminating on Friday. This is the highlights of the Wednesday dress rehearsal.

This is Calliope House's School Performance. These are a collection of highlights of the acts. Each house had to perform five acts that represent the cultures of the school. A more detailed description of the festival is being prepared by the students involved and we will be posting it tomorrow.

Tamaki Int - Blog Check Room 202 Thailand

If you haven't visited sites in Thailand recently (as in classrooms) I'd suggest that you start by having a look at Room 202 Classroom Blog. They've been posting a lot recently using Inspiration Mind Maps (which I think is innovative and creative) and they have a great different perspective coming from a unique part of the world (is this an oxymoron?) anyway if you have time and wish to visit somewhere else interesting...