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

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

Puppet Pals Retelling of The Prince and the Lion

On Friday, Han, Natalia and William used Puppet Pals to retell the story they have been reading this week. They worked together and have made an interesting video. They have improved so much on the last time they did this. I can't wait to see their next Puppet Pals video! (You may even be able to see some of their other work on their blogs!)

Goodbye Hazelnut and Lunar!

Hazelnut and Lunar had a great time with us, but it was time for them to move on to the next school. Before they left, they got to meet some of the other staff at Rowandale:

With Mr Vasau

With Mrs Tofilau

They also got to see a powhiri for our new teachers. Do you know what a powhiri is?

They are now on there way to Denmark. Here is a map of everywhere they've been and the next school they're going to. Can you name all of the places they've been to so far? They have travelled quite a long way.

We wish them luck on their journey. Thanks for visiting us!

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.

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:

Quality Work: Writing About Hazelnut and Lunar

Today we wrote descriptions of Hazelnut and Luna. Have a read of what some of us wrote:

By Natalia

 By Dizaliyah

By Mu

 By  Paris

Retelling a Story Using Puppet Pals

Last week, the Gorillas read the book: Consequences. They had a go at retelling the story using the iPad app Puppet Pals. Have a look at their work:

Hazelnut and Luna Arrive in New Zealand

The Marvellous Meerkats are taking part in the Travel Buddy Project started by PLC Sydney. A few days ago, they arrived here at Rowandale School. We're posting on their blog HERE (and you can find their blog on the sidebar), but I've copied the posts to our blog as well...

A few days ago, Hazelnut and Luna arrived in New Zealand and decided to visit us here at Rowandale School. They looked exhausted when they came to my door. It must have taken them ages to get all the way from Faraday School in England. They brought a book with them to tell us all about London.

All of the children were very excited to meet our new friends. We made sure that we sat and listened very carefully when they read their story to us.

Later, it was our day to take care of some of the animals that live at our school so we decided to bring the two of them to help us with our work. Our pigs are named Hettie and Percy (but our chickens don't have any names).

We're looking forward to having our two new friends visit us this week. It's Maori Language Week, so hopefully they will go to their next school knowing some new words!

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

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:

Making a Story

Today in writing Mr Davidson gave us some pictures from a story that we haven't read. We had to work in teams to put them in order (it didn't have to be the right order, it just had to make sense). Then we came up with a story for the pictures. At the end of the lesson we started writing our stories on the chromebooks. We haven't finished them yet, but check back later this week to see what we've written.

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: