<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> - Abacus, a tool for teaching number places, fractions, and different bases: <a href="http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4293" target="_blank">http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4293</a> __ </blockquote></div> I hadn t played Abacus before this mail. It is great learning maths game. Just trying to make the same number on the different preset abacus is fun ;-) Abacus could had made a difference for some of my past year students that in first year of secondary school didn t managed decimal system to the point of not knowing how to make amounts of money with money papers... Hard picture. You have 2 or 3 of that students per 25/35 children class you cannot really pay atention to them. As they are not the kind of pupil that has a background home, with a desktop an a pencil and a rubber (usually there are too many in a room for developing intellectual activities), having this kind of tool for the xo (ceibalita) is very good and really makes a difference when you -as teacher- promote it s use as homework task, for e.g. I hope some teacher at some school gets to use Abacus where esential :) Count me in for translating the wiki or for making some class planification that fits with schooling structure, it can be for 1st year of secondary as I worked with in 2010 for example. Ana. ps. Working among early grades students is harder and it less payed-- because traditionally upper grade studying needed society stimulation. In uruguay 2ndary teachers is a strictly ordered set ( 19 lists, one for each region) , and in that order is invited to choose --every year--- the grade and the school to work. Nobody wants to work with early years of public hisghschool having other choice... (system could help education a lot with some really little changes, but as little changes don t make political issues, nobody promotes them)