Dr Ange's Blog

Yesterday was a very hot day in Melbourne. It reached 41 degrees. I have recently purchased from Facebook marketplace 2 hydrangeas. They have to be one of my favourite plants… they can produce pink, white or purple flowers depending on the soil acidity! Pretty amazing!
Another thing I have noticed a...

My six year old daughter has been going through the right of passage that is learning to ride a bike. People use the phrase “it’s like riding a bike” meaning that you never forget it once you learn the skill. This may be the case, but every time one of my children goes through the process I am remin...

This summer we have been playing a few games of backyard cricket. Everyone gets involved and it is lots of fun! We have a wide range of abilities in our cricket game. From my 3 year old son who is lucky to hit the ball in 1/30 attempts, through to my husband who seems to take great pleasure in hitti...

I believe that having an explicit focus on vocabulary in our maths teaching is of critical importance. There are so many words that we use in our descriptions and explorations of maths concepts and more often than not these are words that the students would have never come across in their life. In m...

On the holidays, my 14 year old had a photography assignment where she was required to take a number of different photos. There were different requirements: one had to include people, one needed to be at night, one was a landscape and one needed to involve symmetry.

I found this to be a really enga...

In January my husband and children packed our bags and headed on a lovely holiday to Queensland. On the first day we drove past the local bowls club and my ‘Maths Eye’ was drawn to a sign stating:

 “Bingo 7pm this Thursday night, all welcome”.

I was very excited and suggested to everyone that Bing...

On the radio this week I heard a fact that really shocked me. It mentioned that it can take on average 17 years to turn research into practice.

I decided to have a little dig into where this research came from, and it appears to have been completed in the health field. So this means it takes a long...

Have you ever been to an athletics sports and seen a student slow down and walk as they approach the finish line? It rarely happens, most of them are busting to ‘finish strong’. Each year in teaching is a little like a race, we start full of enthusiasm, but sometimes by the time we reach December, w...

When I was a teenager, my Christmas job was in a cake factory. I would count 10 shortbread biscuits (I now consider myself 'elite' at counting to ten😂- perhaps this is what led me to my research in place value🤷‍♀️!). I would put the 10 shortbread in a plastic cello bag and seal the bag with a heat s...

LEGO is an amazing resource. Did you know that 2022 marks the 90th Anniversary of the LEGO group? LEGO are huge champions for play, and as teachers, we all know the critical role play plays in learning. LEGO is timeless resource, which can be used not just at home, but also has many applications in ...

I always prefer summer over winter, so I do find myself getting excited about the upcoming 6 week summer holiday break. Summer holidays are a great time to engage in some ‘slower’ activities with my children, like reading and playing board and card games. When we play games I always think of my bolo...

In 1990 Arthur Baroody (1990) wrote an excellent article titled “How and when should place value concepts and skills be taught?”. In this research Arthur presents four increasingly abstract models of place value. 

1.Grouping ten ones into a ten

2 Trading in Ten ones for a pre-grouped ten

3 Tradin...