Google Expeditions!

Today, the Meerkats went to Africa, India, Cambodia, Canada, Mars, under the ocean, and a television studio. All in one day! Can you guess how we did all of that?

No, we didn't have a super fast jet airplane. We used Google Cardboard and went on a Google Expedition.

Google Cardboard is like a set of special goggles that you put a phone in. It makes everything look real, or 3D. You can turn your head and see up and down and all around. You can even zoom in to have a closer look.

Google Expeditions are pictures that people (or robots) have taken in all sorts of cool places, like Australia, the Moon, Mars and lots of other places.

We had so much fun we didn't want to stop. Even after we got dizzy from looking too much.

Please like this post (on Facebook) or write a comment so that we can win a Google Cardboard for our classroom! We want to see lots of other places!

Musical Meerkats

Today the Marvellous Meerkats had a musical performance in the hall. All of the IAs and High Flyers and lots of parents were watching us.

A few weeks ago, we started practicing. We had to keep trying and trying.

Our performance started with Dash. Dash played his xylophone in front of the whole school. They loved hearing and watching him play. Azlyn helped Dash out because Dash was scared.

Then J-Lynn started to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the rest of us sang along. We used a special thing called a Makey Makey that turned Bradley, George, Natalia, Alex, Paris and Sunday into a musical instrument. All J-Lynn had to do was touch them on their hands.

Next Dakshesh played the Alphabet Song and Ryley played a special song Mr Davidson wrote. They both used the same instrument made out of the children.

When we were performing, we made mistakes but we continued. Mr Davidson didn't even help us one bit. He took this video:

We want to do this in front of the whole school again because we had so much fun. Some of us got scared, but we still tried our best and were very brave.

Indian Treats (Diwali)

Today Dakshesh and his Mum made some yummy, spicy treats. Yesterday was Diwali and they wanted to share some wonderful things with us. We want to say thank you to both of them for sharing. Some of us have never had these treats before. It was a great, new experience.

"The food was really yummy and spicy" - Natalia

Shared Writing

This week we did some shared writing in partners. We looked at a picture of two teachers at our school and we wrote a description about them. Here is an example of one, written by Asafo, Dakshesh and Soileti.

Weekly Certificates

Congratulations to Alex and Dakshesh, the winners of our class and Duffy certificates respectively. Both have been amazing helpers all week long. Great work boys!

Counting by Threes

Today the Parrots were counting by threes using the beans and the lids. They worked really hard together and managed to get all the way up to 99. Have a look at some pictures of our work.

A Great Big Thank You!

When Mr Davidson went back home to Canada, he saw his family friend, Helen. She was always very good at knitting. When Mr Davidson was little, she made him many things: sweaters, mittens, socks, hat and other things. She knew Mr Davidson had a class of children back in New Zealand and she knew that it was winter time there (even though it was summer time in Canada). So she decided to knit hats for every single Meerkat (including Ngeru). Mr Davidson brought them back in his suitcase.

We even learned a new word from Canada: toque. It means the warm hats you wear in the winter time. 

We decided that it would be nice to send some thank you letters. A few weeks ago, we wrote our letters and Mr Davidson sent them in the mail. Now that they've arrived in Canada (on Helen's birthday!) we can share the surprise. Here are some of the letters that we wrote:

From Paris

Thank you Helen! We really enjoy the warm gloves and toques you sent us! It's really cold right now and they are coming in very handy.

Maori Language Week Challenges 2 and 3

Yesterday the Meerkats were very busy and couldn't find time to finish the challenge. So today we decided to make a movie to show the last two challenges. Our friends visiting from Australia (Hazelnut and Luna) wanted to be in the video, but they were scared. So Ngeru offered to be in the video with them. Have a look at our video. Thank you to Danielle and Ryley for making the video and Dakshesh and Dizaliyah for helping Ngeru, Hazelnut and Luna remember their lines.

Maori Language Week: Challenge #1

This week is Maori Language Week! Our first challenge was to learn how to say hello. But it's not as easy as you'd think. You have to say different things, depending on how many people you are talking to. We've made three ThingLinks to show you what to say, depending on how many people you are talking to (hint, click on the red bits to see them talk):

If you're talking to 1 Person:

If you're talking to 2 People

If you're talking to 3 or more People:

Fluency Practice

We've had some more children practice their reading. Have a look and listen to five of our students who have filmed each other reading so far this week:

Fluency Practice

This week some of our reading groups started filming our reading so we can practice getting better at making it sound interesting. Here are the people that filmed their reading this week. Have a listen:

Samoan Language Week Challenge 1

Ordering by Long and Short

On Wednesday the Marvellous Meerkats learned about long and short.

First we each looked for one thing that was long and one thing that was short.

Next we got into our groups.

Then we put the shortest one down and the longest one down. They have to start at the same spot.

Have a look at the pictures we took:

Learning About Animals

Mrs Lee came to teach us last week and she showed us some cool things we can do with Google Slides and You Tube. First, we had to pick an animal with our group and find a video about it on the You Tube Channel, All Things Animal TV. Mrs Lee showed us how to embed the video into a Google Slide, so that we could have it in our presentation. Then we wrote some facts that we found out about the animals. Have a look at some of the slides we made:

By Han, Paris and Koringoa

By Dakshesh and Soileti

   

By Bradley, Samuel & Trey

International Dance Day

Friday was International Dance Day so all of the Year 1 and 2 students went to the hall to learn some dancing. It was lots of fun. We did so many dances and some of us even got to go up on stage to dance in front of everyone. Have a look at what we did:

Making Eighteen

We're almost finished our teen numbers. Today the Parrots and Toucans made the number 18 with lots of materials. Here's their work:

Same Length Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday, when Mr Davidson was at a maths course, we did some maths of our own. Whaea Mele gave us eight blocks. She told us to find something that had the same length as the blocks. We found pencils, felts, scissors and books.

Making Sixteen

We are moving right along with our teen numbers. Today we got up to 16. Have a look at all the different materials we can use to make 16.

Making Fourteen AND Fifteen

This week some of our groups were able to make Pic Collages showing all the ways we can make both 14 and 15! They had to be very clever and work together by taking different jobs. Well done. Have a look at all of our work:

Making Thirteen (Part I)

This week we continued making our teen numbers. We're up to 13 now. See all the different ways we made the number. We are getting better at it. We started working as a team and used lots of materials.