Estimation Ideas

[Earthmerlin]

I’d like to promote my nearly 10 yr old’s estimation skills through everyday living (so no worksheets). When she was younger, we did estimation jars & I could do that again quickly but am looking for everyday, easy activities to refine these skills (in various contexts) so she can build the ability to estimate in a variety of ways (items, time, etc.). Do you have any ideas (I’m brain deade at the moment, LOL)?

[HomeAgain]

There was a really skinny book about estimations we loved.  It had kids break up the page into sections, count the number in one section, and then estimate the number multiplied against the rest of the sections.  I liked that it taught the process in bites and made it seem less overwhelming.  "How many in a 1in square?  About how many 1in squares would fit on this page? 
We were able to take that and apply it across the board. 

[alisha]

We did the estimation jars also when they were younger. I bet that would go over pretty well again for you. For time, you might say, how long do you think it will take you to x (ex. jump 10 times). The more you do it, the better she'll get. For prices, it's more of a quick issue, and I haven't figured out how to do that because mine would just rather add it up specifically. If I say, "quick, about how much...." he gets nervous and can't do it. Maybe have some items in another room with prices on it, and by the time they get back to you they have to estimate how much it would cost. Or???

[letsplaymath]

She might enjoy some of the challenges on these websites:

• http://www.estimation180.com/
• http://www.wyrmath.com/

[goldenecho]

A great place for real life estimating is the store.   Take her with you shopping (for groceries, for something fun, really anything)...and tell her your budget for that shopping trip.   To stay in budget, you don't need to keep exact tabs on the price of things to the last penny.   Rounding up the prices to the nearest dollar and keeping an estimation in your head of about how much the things you've gathered cost together.  (You can discuss whether it would make more sense to round up or round down the original price of each item.)    

You can start with a smaller shopping trip (where you get less things), and work up to a larger trip. 

You can also estimate by size whether a certain size will be enough to feed everyone.

Cooking is also good for estimation.  Estimate how many cookies can be made with a certain size lump of cookie dough. 

And you can do estimation when reading.   How many words do you think is on this page?   Well, how many words are in the first line?   How many lines are there?  

 

 

 

[Earthmerlin]

On 8/24/2019 at 3:34 PM, letsplaymath said:

She might enjoy some of the challenges on these websites:

• http://www.estimation180.com/
• http://www.wyrmath.com/

LOL! I have those bookmarked already but had forgotten them until you mentioned them.

[PeterPan]

I used a series of workbooks with my ds (that I'd have to look up but could find) that had you do lots of hands-on for measuring and estimating. Like they'd have you measure with your actual feet or some other object and estimate ahead how many it would be and then do it. Scaling, that kind of thing.

We also do a lot of "abouts" with our math, especially for time, temperature, and money. Or we'll do the "how much would you give the cashier for this" thing. So the item costs $12.95, how much would you give them, etc.