ESTIMATING

Estimating is an important activity and applies to all aspects 
of mathematics. Whenever possible, ask your children to                    guess quantities. Some examples of estimating tasks that you might        ask the children to do are:

• estimate the number of jelly beans in a jar
• estimate how many people are in a room
• estimate how many pieces of bread are in a loaf
• estimate the biggest house number in the street that you          have  just turned into
• estimate how far it is to a particular point in the distance            whilst driving
• estimate how long it will be until you walk to a particular point
• take 15 seconds, say, to walk to the other side of the room
• estimate how many steps there are from the bottom to the top when you are walking up some stairs. On some occasions work together to find the actual amount, distance etc.

Matt Sexton and his colleagues at the Australian Catholic University -
​Mathematics Teaching & Learning Centre

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