Target Readers - and where is Ma'uke?

I set up a little target reading group, organised a new scrapbook for recording tricky vocab, questions, summaries of text and titles of what we've read, and began guided reading sessions with them. I chose 5 children to work with, Will, KK, Kahla, Keenan and Tekyllah. So far we have taken a lot longer than the rest of the class to get through our reading, but discussion has been good, and they are beginning to realise that if they don't speak up when they are confused or have questions, I will find out.
Today we read a school journal story. Ma'uke was mentioned, the place where 'Papa' grew up. None of them questioned this, so in the end I asked if they knew where it was. In the South Island was one response. Another was somewhere in NZ. I asked them to look at the illustrations as they may provide a clue (the people were wearing lavalavas, they had flowers decorating their mirrors, and tivaevae patterns on their furnishings). So one of the group responded with... New York!
I suggested using the atlas to find out. The first thing they all did was turn to a map of NZ. And then painstakingly search for Ma'uke within NZ. Eventually I had to say that perhaps there might be an index that will help us. This was located at the back of the atlas, they discovered, and after quite some time they also realised places were listed in alphabetical order! Finally, someone reached the word we were looking for. I asked which page we could find the map on, and was promptly given... the map coordinates!
I could have just given them a laptop and said look it up online, but where's the fun in that?  So much learning!
The rest of the class are keen to work in groups now too, so I have decided to group them mixed ability, even though they are all reading at or above expected levels, and they can have their own scrapbooks too (I think this is what they actually wanted) and they can carry on with reciprocal reading and the prompt cards for this, as it has promoted a lot more in depth discussion around texts. I am also thinking that I shall add Alicia and Tylar to my target group for a little boost.
It's April Fools Day tomorrow. Now that they all know stories in school journals are fiction, and articles are non-fiction, it might be time to do the Macaroni Forest article again!