Samoan Siva

On Fridays this term Koka Tania has been teaching us the Samoan Siva.  She is a dancer herself. There are different moves for the boys and girls so far we have done verse 1 and the chorus.  This is a lot of fun and the music is great to listen to! 

Here are the actions can you practice them at home? 

Boys actions

Girls actions

Folk Dancing - food for the soul!

Last week we began a folk dancing unit for Friday Programme. We are very lucky to have an expert come in and work with us! Jane is very passionate about teaching and dancing with many different culture's music! 

Why folk dancing you may be thinking?  

Well let me tell you what it can offer. Folk dance is exactly what it says, dance from the folk or people of the country it is from. These dances tell the story of their cultures and offer a way of being and having fun socially. This type of dance is how people socialise and connect with one another in an everyday setting. All cultures have their own form of dance in this way and by learning some of the dances we are connecting in a multi-cultural way! 

 We connect with each other using music, holding hands and making eye contact. By sharing together in this way we are celebrating what it is to be human! Musically these dances follow a steady rhythm and beat and teach us how to listen for patterns and count! By being in tune with these sorts of things we are training our brains to be more connected across the mathematical, creative and physical side! 

So basically - why wouldn't you?! 

 Here are the dances we learnt last week, different year levels learnt different ones so have a look at each other's dances too!

 

Friday programme links all our learning together!

On Fridays we have a rotation where we learn Science, Dance and Drama and Music.  During this time we learn skills to create and show our understanding. The telling of a story using Mau Rakau and Korari moves is a process that was started on camp where we learnt some moves. 

While on camp we also created some Atua scupltures to represent our classes.  

Tawhiritmatea

Rongomatane

Tanemahuta

This learning, designing and creating has really increased our understanding of what the atua means and how important they are for all areas of our environment.

We have continued with this at school and today started creating sequences in unison showing the sea birds and the land birds.  Can you see these moves in here? 

Site dances

In Friday Programme we were looking at our special school places.  We really love to show off our school and we decided in groups to create a dance using these special places.  
We used the Pou which are for all our classes, the playground which we love to play on and the cycle track posts to play leap frog on. 

We were learning to include all our group members in our dance and use unison, canon stillness and movement.  We think we did great at all of this! 

The music was added in last to give it a really good feel.  This was so much fun and here are our videos: 

Pou Atua

Playground Fun

Leap Frogs

Roswell and Lilian - A Play

Last Friday our 19 Year 6's performed a play to the school!  

We had been practicing and learning about it during Friday Programme this term.  This was a play set in Medieval times about Kings and Queens!  Written in melodrama style we had a lot of fun over acting and doing big actions.  This made it really funny and the audience loved it! 

We are looking forward to more performances at Makaraka has Talent and the Final Assembly!  

Kung Fu with Meixia June 1

During our Friday Programme Makaraka School are learning Chinese language and culture.  This Friday the Year 5's were doing Kung Fu!  What fun the they had learning the actions and commands.

Here is the video of them practicing! Each week we are getting better at pronouncing the words and understanding another culture.