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.