Counting and Estimating

We do a lot of counting and estimating at school across the grades.  This is a fun thing to do at home and works great with kids of different ages.  My kids are in K, 2 and 4 and we did a little counting, estimating and dividing task yesterday that I thought would be fun to share.  We used a bag of jellybeans and started by estimating how many were in the bag without opening it.  

Then we dumped the bag on the table and I asked them how many we could each take.  My second grader thought there was enough for us each to take 20 so we did.  We organized them into groups of 10's.  My Kindergartner counted them by 10. We then adjusted our estimates based on what we knew so far.  (this number is SUPER hard for K/1 kids to estimate) 

Then it was decided that we could each take 20 more.  I asked them to figure out how many had been taken so far.  They all could do it but their strategies were very different depending on their age! 

Then my fourth grader suggested we each take 10 more and then we would each have 50 which we could arrange into groups of 100.  

We put 100 in each little cup

We made our final estimates based on the above picture. 

We thought there was enough for us each to take 25 so we did and it gave us a chance to practice counting by 25's (an important skill for grades 2 and up to count money with!) 

We now have 3 groups of 100 and a small pile left over. 

Our total was 333!  We dumped them back on the table and my fourth grader divided them up between the 4 of us.  

We call this type of division partial quotients.  It is a super helpful way for kids to make sense of division with a sharing model.  If you want to know more about this division strategy check out the Quotient Cafe game on the grade 4 page! 

We stashed out jelly beans in the small containers so we can use them for more little activities this week! 

If your family tries out a counting and estimating routine, take some pictures and email them to me so I can share them on our weekly Math at Home roundup!