Twelve = a dozen

Friday .. August 24^th   

I could hear cars leaving earlier this evening.  Many of the children had said that they would be attending the rodeo at Doomadgee, which is just over the Queensland border.  According to everyone in town, it is bigger and better than the Borroloola rodeo, but it was still a big surprise for us when only 12 students turned up at assembly today. Consequently, major timetable changes were made and the teachers shared the teaching load, allowing for some extra, precious planning time for the staff. I chose to work with a special needs student who became mesmerized by my ipad. Numeracy and literacy games kept her fascinated for an hour and half.  

There was work to do in the community too, so the whole school, 12 students (and a dog) took off to visit the goats. Scrubbing the water trough, and filling it with fresh water whilst feeding and patting the goats and admiring the new born kids was fun, and the children also had a valuable oral language lesson about goats.

 Then it was off to visit the chooks where eggs would be collected and a hands-on Maths lesson would take place. Between 17 and 20 dozen eggs are collected each day from the 250+ chooks. The children love collecting the eggs, which are then washed, sundried and carefully counted into egg cartons. Inside each cartoon lid the teachers write math’s problems, to be solved before the eggs are put in. The maths lesson continues…. How many more eggs do you need in that box to make 12?  If I have three full boxes, how many eggs have I got? And how many eggs are there in a dozen? etc.  The full boxes were stacked and taken directly to the shop ready for sale.  David stopped at the shop on the way home from school. He bought a dozen eggs and the shopkeeper said, ‘these are fresh, just collected today.” “I know,” said David smiling.  Eggs were served with our salad for dinner this evening!!