Whole Numbers

Familiar with the questions above? For Malaysians like me, we get to do this during our Form 1 years or perhaps higher primary level. (Age 11-13)

I tried to do these questions once again in order to build up my teaching ideas, so that I can explain to my students some day in the future.

To be honest, as a teacher or an adult, I found out although these questions are very simple and easy doing; the terrible part was I still made a lot of mistakes like not reading the questions properly and perhaps doing it like an automaton; (not knowing or understanding what I was doing).

In reflecting of my own practice, I can give a rough question that I understood the place value of the numbers, knowing which units, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, etc. they belong to. My professor always blasted us that we as teachers should not assume students to understand what we ourselves understood, but look into their perspectives, reach into their minds as we first learning about maths.

Explaining place value. (Usually I receive silly yet innocent questions from students)

Why 16 is in the tens?

I'm not really an expert in explaining and setting good questions, but through how I understood place value, I guess this is how I could help explaining to my kids.

Feel free to comment, how you understand place value, and feel free to correct my thinking as well,
Available teaching resource:
Place Value Worksheet
Place Value Labels (Value Groupings)

Regards,

Mr David 

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The Great Quest

At the loneliest moments in your life you have looked at other men and women and wondered if they too were seeking - something they couldn't describe but knew they wanted and needed. - Billy Graham

I don't know what people around me are thinking, what they are hoping for each day. I always like to assume that people have everything that I don't, thinking they are happy with the things they have right now. I wonder have they found their life purposes or so to say "their dream path".

Each day, I feel insecure, living my life at the very lowest self-esteem. Some days, I depend on God's confidence and grace. Some days, when I screwed things up or being annoyed by worldly circumstances, but most of the time, I always indulged into my past and coveted on the things that I do not possess.

I stood empty before God, almost everyday I ask him: "Who am I and what is my purpose in my life? What do you see in me, that you're still keeping me in the love of Christ each day?"

As life prolongs and increased its tempo, I felt my world is getting tougher and my comfort zone is no longer a returnable place for me to dwell within. I ignore most of my friends and considered them a wavelength that is undetectable, because my frequency and theirs were perhaps too low or too high. I wished to be careless and be innocent like them, but I can't, because of the responsibilities, because of my own story written in a different genre.

I saw things and I experienced the lives of whom I love and considered close. How much they've been through, and how much pain and sinful decision they made, just to keep us fed and surviving. I could ask God why? But in my heart, I just know what He will be answering. 

The only thing that keeps me going was perhaps the strong will to be a hero for my family despite of ill-felt I've been through everyday. Maybe also because of the adorable and awkward affections my kids in my teaching school gave me. I couldn't be their teacher, and they couldn't be my students, for we all know that Mr. David is too young to be a strict looking teacher. They hugged me for no reason, they grabbed my hand or pinched my shirt not allowing me to leave from their side, they called me friend and asked me to gesture with them. The most dearest one is the one who always insisted to call me brother but for professional reasons I shunt them off. My life would be easier, if I could be teachers who cares only about what they teach. 

I still don't know what I'm running for and where am I heading to? Imagining myself pushing away God's hand and run away daftly like a spoiled child, but He have to chase me and pull me back walking with him on that great quest.

Mr. David

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