Saturday, September 20, 2014

Estimation Machine!

As many of you know we have a new addition to our classroom – the Estimation Machine! Estimation is an important skill for our second graders to develop and it's one they will continue to revisit through the years. The Estimation Machine is a really fun way to bring that skill to life in the classroom.

Many of you guessed at Open House how many erasers were in the Estimation Machine!  On Friday we went through and counted how many counting bears were actually in the Estimation Machine.  We brainstormed possible ways to count all the erasers: group them in 2s, 5s, 10s, etc.  We took a class vote on what strategy to use and the groups of 10 strategy won.  Together we formed 14 groups of 10!  We added our groups of 10s together to find out how many counting were in the Estimation Machine.  Many jaws dropped when we realized 140 counting bears were in the Estimation Machine.  Many students thought there were between 70 and 100 counting bears in the Machine. Students jaws dropped even more when we went through the estimation guesses and realized Leah's sister (Erin) was only 4 counting bears off with an estimate of 144! Way to go Erin! 

Since Leah’s sister was closest, Leah has taken home the Estimation Machine to fill for next week.  Next week the student whose estimation is closest to the actual number will take the estimation jar home to refill with a new item. This cycle will continue throughout the school year.  Some suggestions for items to put in the Estimation Machine are:

-       Animal cookies

-       Beads

-       Beans

-       Bolts

-       Bottle caps

-       Crayons

-       Cotton balls

-       Corks

-       Drinking straw halves

-       Erasers

-       Gumballs

-       Goldfish

-       Macaroni

-       Marbles

-       Marshmallows

-       Nuts

-       Paper clips

-       Pasta

-       Puzzle pieces

-       Rubber bands

-       Seashells

-       Stickers

-       Sunflower seeds

-       Toothpicks

-       Washers

Thanks to all of you who made an estimate at Open House!  Your responses made for a room full of excitement on Friday morning.

No comments:

Post a Comment