Shopping for school

One of the things I enjoy about being in Australia is the shopping. No-one looking over your shoulder every minute you are in the shop. Wandering in wide aisles, in air-conditioned comfort. Spotting bargains. The challenge is that I've only got 30kg of checked baggage and 7kg carryon to get it all back to Cambodia. This year I've been blessed with a couple of gifts of money to buy things for my students, and I'm really appreciative of those gifts. Here's some of the goodies I'll be taking back with me.

Slightly smaller than our existing sets, this set will be perfect for lower grades when I add a few more ones cubes to it.

Ones cubes are tiny, and so they get lost easily. Also we only had one hundred in each set which isn't quite enough for individual students to work with them. Now I've got an extra hundred tens (longs) and an extra two thousand ones so I'll be able to make our existing sets much more user friendly. Just need to remind teachers how hard it is to get these so they make sure students are careful to put all the pieces away carefully.

Aldi had these excellent non-fiction books on sale for just $2.49 (RRP $14.99) and I stocked up my sticker supply as well. These were just $2 per packet with either 240 or 384 stickers in each. 

 A big thank you to those who helped me buy these things. There's more in Brisbane to pack, but I'm hopeful it will all fit within my luggage allowance.

My new buddy

I just discovered it's three months since I posted anything here! Oops. Sorry folks. Life's been hectic. This year's grade 4K is really challenging me. Looking at some strategies to implement after the Christmas break to see if we can turn things in the right direction. I feel a bit sorry for the kids who have been doing the right thing week after week, because they haven't been able to have the fun that my previous classes have earned, so I'm also working on something to fix that.

Meanwhile I was feeling so discouraged today, and just plain tired, as well as frustrated with intermittent internet problems that I went for a walk down to the local phone shop, got a new sim for 3G internet and then treated myself to something fun.

Meet my new buddy. I haven't got a name for her yet, but I think she's pretty cute. In addition to being cute, she also has the responsibility of protecting my phone on the odd occasion that it slips out of my hand and hits the ground.

I also decided that the bright pink would make my phone easier to find in the depths of my handbag! Having spent the huge amount of 10,000 riel (less than $3) at the phone shop, I decided to also treat myself to a "Mango Chiller". An icy cold drink on a cool day (everything's relative here) was just what I needed.

So, what do you think I should call my new buddy?

Look what I found today!

Even in Phnom Penh, there are a couple of places that I kind of enjoy shopping. Today I visited one, looking for a way to organise my resources for our math program, and also to possibly replace something I broke earlier in the day.  Well, I didn't find either in the first place I looked, but look what I did find.

Front view

Back view with beads flipped over.

When I spotted the first one, I thought about it for a minute and then checked the price. They were just $2 each. They only had five, so I decided to buy all their stock. I was glad I did, because a couple of them were either missing a bead or had an extra one. It was an easy process to move the beads so that I end up with four complete ones and then I also moved the columns with missing beads to the 10,000,000 and 100,000,000 places (which I may just remove anyway as we don't go past 1,000,000 in 4th grade) so even the fifth one is usable. I've got 4 tables in my classroom, so that's one per table and one to spare!

Now why am I so excited about this. Well, one of the tools that is used in our math program to help students understand larger numbers is the abacus. There's a printed version and students practice reading and writing four and five digit numbers using the abacus.

The next step from simply reading the number is telling what the number would be if a single bead is added to a particular place. Some of my students in the past have really struggled with this, especially when it comes to adding that tenth bead to a column which requires regrouping. When I spotted these little treasures, I thought, "That's just what I need for those students who need hands on practice".

Now if you look closely you'll notice there's a lot of writing on the front side. Some of it is Chinese characters (like the ones you can still see at the base of each column) and there was also a "Multiplication Table". Since I do occasionally get students who can read Chinese, and also the Multiplication Table would be distracting, I found a piece of coloured "contact" and covered it up. It was a bit fiddly, but all the loops come out and I managed to do it without losing any beads.

I'm still working out what to do with the base, but I know I've got some sticky spots somewhere that I can write the English letters on for represent each of the places that we will use. Now I'm looking forward to using them with my kids when school goes back.

Background writing covered with "contact".