Math Mondays: Estimation

Have you seen this pin floating around Pinterest?

Source

I saw it and LOVE this idea!  Usually when you think estimation you think jars of different amounts of items.  Estimation is such a necessary skill for kiddos to be successful later in their education and sometimes I think it is so easily overlooked!  In my experiences, I have seen students get frustrated and confused when it comes to estimation because there are no real rules to it.  Really when they practice estimating you are ultimately also teaching reasonableness.  For example, it would be unreasonable to say that there were a million trees on the paper on the left in the picture above.  But, we take for granted that students don’t realize this might be unreasonable.  So, giving students an environment where they can practice estimation in many different ways is key!  At first they might give unreasonable answers and that is OKAY! It’s an opportunity to discuss how they came to that answer and how they could come up with a more reasonable answer.  It’s an opportunity for them to learn! I could go on and on about how key estimation is to a firm foundation!  It also relates to spatial awareness and beginnings of repeated addition and arrays, etc.

So, I created a simple little estimation math center.  FREE to you! 

It comes with six cards with different candies.  Students ESTIMATE, not count, how many they think are on the card and then record it.  Then they identify which card they think has the most and least.  There is an answer key included as well!  Enjoy!

 

 

 

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