Tuesday, November 30, 2010

A Magical Sleepover at Kelly Tarltons

Today was the day I went to Kelly Tarltons. I was even more excited because I was going with my class and Room 8. It was 5:30 p.m. and I was just getting ready. I shoved my sleeping bag into my little bag and hurried off. We arrived at Kelly Taltons at exactly 6:10 p.m. on Monday the first of November. This was part of out EOTC Programme.

I took the first ride with some of my friends in room 2. As we drove we saw the other van with the rest of my class in it. On our arrival we were greeted by our guide Darren. We had to wait in a classroom for the others. Then, the other guide Stephen explained the rules to us. After that we went on a tour with him and Darren.

While we were walking Darren walked off somewhere and I was suspicious. Finally we reached the penguin section and I ran to the see-through glass and saw the penguins just sitting there. Next we went down a short corridor to enter a room full of old stuff used in Antarctica. This was Scott’s Hut. Suddenly out of nowhere a strange figure with a sack over his head jumped out from the top bunk and lunged out into the crowd. It was only Darren trying to scare us and he succeeded.

After all that mayhem he took us to stingray bay and allowed us to feed heaps of giant king fish. This was awesome! Next Stephen said in a loud voice, “Let’s have a competition, boys versus girls!” Five boys and girls put their hands in. It was freezing and so cold so 2 of the boys pulled out and the score was 5 to 3 to the girls.

Then we spotted a massive stingray just hovering close to the floor in the tank while the other stingrays and the humongous kingfish went right past it.

It was getting late and Darren told us to get some sleep because we had more to do the next day. The lights went off and we were allowed to go exploring with our torches. It was an amazing experience. Eventually everyone went to sleep except for the 11 boys in the shark tunnel who were awake and talking all night.

“Wake up!” shouted Darren in a high pitched voice. We had to get out of bed, wash our face and brush our teeth. It was discussion time and then a big breakfast. We watched an interesting video on Kelly Tarlton the founder of the aquarium. After that we went to see the penguins and go on the snow cat ride. The ride was slow but the bonus was that we got to go twice. It was worth the wait to see the penguins and the king gentoo. Unfortunately it was time to go back to school.

We did experience a magical night at Kelly Tarltons.

Manaiakalani Film Festival

Digital Storytelling is the new thing in education and I suggest that you should not be afraid of it neither should you praise it instead you should use it as an education tool. That’s what the Manaiakalani Cluster is doing by holding the Manaiakalani Film Festival. Tamaki Intermediate School and Pt England School were the first to view the films made exclusively by the
Manaiakalani Schools. It was chilly that November morning when we all piled on to the bus. It soon became clammy inside the cramped bus all the way to Sylvia Park Hoyts to see the films on the X-treme Screen.

After the confined, clammy, cramped bus journey the bus came to a halt outside Sylvia Park and we all skipped, hopped and jumped off the bus. It was raining so we all ran across the pedestrian crossing like we were running a sprinting race. When we walked into the courtyard it was like a scene out of a movie. The arch above us slowly moved as we walked to reveal a huge, beautiful Christmas tree decorated from top to bottom with reindeer, sleighs, Santa, toys and everything related to Christmas.

We then followed on to the escalators and then we turned and went up the stairs while Pt England were happily gliding up the escalator. We ran as fast as we could and then we stopped so suddenly that it was like we hit a brick wall only because the door could only fit two people at a time.

Soon we were seated and the films started.. First up were two people from our school, Afu and Apelu. Their movie was fantastic and an enormous success. It was about Digital Storytelling and it was called Are You Ready? It was aimed at teachers and parents/caregivers. The next few movies passed through my mind like a hot knife through butter. Until one great movie caught my eye, Who’s Your Neighbour? was what it was called. It had a great moral and good filming and cute little actors playing the good Samaritans.

Over all I thought that all of the movies were fantastic but a few really caught my eye.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Manaiakalani Film Festival 2010




A humorous and fun experience for many students of various age groups, uniting the schools of our neighbourhood at the colossal screens. It was a bright sunlit Thursday morning and our school was travelling to the renowned Hoyts theatre recognized for its superb surround sound and titanic screens.


At last after a painstaking period of travelling we’d arrived at the mall and within it was the theatre. Gradually as we walked towards our destination I began to feel slightly frivolous and brimming with anticipation .As I followed series of human signs I soon came across ingenious posters created by the entire cluster of schools taking part which had further enticed me to glance at the films which had optimistically been strikingly completed.


At long last we’d made it. As soon as I saw a glimpse of the theatre I knew it was going to be out of this world. Furthermore as soon as I’d been seated I realised how comfy and hefty those dream seats were. It was as if I was floating on a cloud. Whilst all these things far expected my expectations I found that the films were equally as good as several commercial and highly funded movies apart from showing greater morals and virtues.


One of the movies I found to be the most valuable was Unity and Diversity which demonstrated that no matter what your ethnicity is you can work, communicate and become best of pals. Another film that surpassed my expectation was a short film by Point England School. It was a Justin Beiber music video re-enactment which featured many young actors aged around six to seven. I also was surprised on how each of the presenter s of many age groups showed no sign of stage fright and showed a lot of courage. What let me down was that not every student from each class was able to take part in their class film.


To the end of my experience I was left with new values and morals to look up to from tons of movies shown. This experience was extremely fun and I definitely yearn to see a second movie festival.

Manaiakalani Film Festival 2010


Time was running out and I was going to be late! It was a beautiful but windy day on Thursday 11th of November 2010, Tamaki Intermediate School travelled in four buses to Sylvia Park for the Manaiakalani Film Festival. It was 9:00 in the morning and everyone was ready to go. We were all filled with excitement.

Once we arrived at Sylvia Park we quickly marched out of the bus. We felt little tiny rain drops touching our soft, smooth skin so we rushed across the crossing and went into the mall for shelter.

We finally got to the cinemas where it was very warm and quiet. There were teachers there to usher us to our seats. We were in the Extreme Theatre seated in front of a massive screen.

It was time for the movies to roll. Two presenters from Tamaki Intermediate, Afu and Apelu stepped onto the stage and introduced their movie. Their movie was “Are you ready?” It was a really awesome and interesting movie to watch. The students were very talented. They very superior actors. Are you ready was all about the 21st Century learning?

Next up was Pt.England’s turn to shine on stage. Two little girls were presenting for Pt.England. Their topic for their movie was The X Factor. Pt.England school have very talented young children. One young student sang Dutty Love by Sean Kingston and the other sang somebody to Love by Justin Bieber.

After Pt.England, Glen Brae Primary entered the stage. Their topic was on worms, yucky slimy worms along with little tiny bugs. I don’t like worms and bugs.
Pt.Engand had appeared on the stage again but with different presenters. It was two five year olds. They were tremendous. They were so cute and had outstanding expressions.

Then later on two students from Tamaki Intermediate went on stage and it wasn’t Afu and Apelu this time, it was Olivia and Jorjah. Their topic was about Heal the World, and that was the right topic for us. We want the world to be a better place.
After Tamaki Intermediate it St.Piux. Their topic was about You’re Not My Neighbour. In this movie boys from different cultures had walked past a friend and danced. They knew he was hurt but they didn’t care. But lucky there was a lady who marched to take her child to school and l saw that he needed help. He finally made it to hospital, thanks to that lady.

The Manaiakalani Festival films were not over but we had to head back home because we were only there for 1 hour. We didn’t want to leave but we had to because we had to get ready to write a test the next day.

We had finally reached school and were starving. We quickly ran like a bunch of little mice as if we could see or smell cheese because we were so hungry.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Heal the World

We did a study about the many disasters that happened in different parts of the world and what we can do to heal the world in a small way. Watch our movie and please leave a comment.

Unity in Diversity

As an end product of our inquiry learning project on "Heroes" we made this movie. It is a documentary worth watching.