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.

Thank You For the Delicious Pizza!

Today we were given a free pizza lunch because we brought in lots and lots of our forms. It was delicious. We got to eat pepperoni, Hawaiian, ham & cheese, and cheese pizza.

Thank you to everyone who paid, ordered and delivered it to our classroom! Have a look at us enjoying our yummy lunch.

From The Marvellous Meerkats

GEG Student Summit

Yesterday, some of the Meerkats took a bus ride to Hobsonville Point Primary School for the Google Educator Group Student Summit. We made a presentation on how to make animations using Google Slides. Then we got to see what other students were doing in other schools. we learned how to make a blog and how to make a Google site (more on those later, or if you're clever, you'll see what we made). We had lots of fun and learned lots.  Here is the presentation that we made:

Here are some pictures of us:

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

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:

Basic Fact Families Part 1

Recently, we used a Stop Motion app on the iPads to make some videos showing some basic fact families. Have a look at some of the videos we made (More to come soon):

Samoan Language Week Challenge #4

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:

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 Seventeen

Slowly but surely we're getting higher and higher with our teen numbers. Here are the Pic Collages we made for 17. How many more teen numbers do we have to go?

Healthy and Unhealthy

This afternoon we talked about healthy and unhealthy things. We had to sort lots of pictures into two groups: healthy and unhealthy. We had to work together to cut, sort and glue. Do you agree with the sorting?

Making Thirteen (Part II)

Here are the Pic Collages from the last two groups. We made 13 once again. Can you see all the different ways we made thirteen? Which number do you think will come next?

Quality Work

By Dakshesh 

By George

Te Kupu o te Wiki

This week's word is maumahara . Do you know what that means? If you're the first Meerkat to comment with the correct answer will get 5 house points. Every other Meerkat who comments will get 2 house points. Good luck!

Making Twelve

This week we started looking at the different materials we could use to show numbers. Mr Davidson made 11 for us and we tried twelve this week. Have a look at our tries:

ANZAC Day

This week we were learning about ANZAC day. We looked at some websites and books and found out lots of information. Then we used Google Slides to make some presentations. It was our first try at both things. Have a look at some of the slides we made:

Fractions

Yesterday we made some posters to show what fractions are. We had to match the words, the numbers and a picture of the fraction. We worked in groups and had to agree on our sorting. Here are three of our posters. We need your help to pick which one will go up on our wall. Fill out the form at the bottom of the post to choose. Don't forget your name!