Do your students need help with estimation? Continue reading for two activities to get your students estimating each week!
Estimation is an important skill that helps us understand how much something costs, how long it will take to complete a task, and how many things we need to buy. It is one of the most important life skills we can teach our students.
Estimation is often ignored in middle school classrooms. Teachers have so many topics to cover in a little time. Many times estimation is the topic that is dropped when time is lacking.
One way to have students practice estimating is to have them work on it at the beginning of class. My students always have a warm-up/bell ringer at the start of every class. I use this time to have them practice estimation several days a week.
A few years ago I found a very helpful website that has two great activities for estimation, The website is https://stevewyborney.com/. I use these activities a couple of times a week. This saves me a lot of time on planning and they save me money because they are free!
This website has a lot of different activities, but I am going to focus on the two estimation activities that I love to use for warm-ups with my students.
Estimation Clipboard for Estimating in Math
Estimation Clipboard is a set of PowerPoint slides that you can download for free. There are over 100 Estimation Clipboard PowerPoints that are available to use with your students.
A video showing how to use the activity is available. There is also a slide on the PowerPoint that gives you tips for using the activity.
In Estimation Clipboard students are shown an image that has some objects to be estimated. Students are encouraged to give an estimate for the object verbally. Then the amount of objects is revealed. A second object that is similar to the first object is shown and students estimate again.
The second part of the activity shows another object similar to the first two objects. This time students will write down their estimates and share them with a partner. They are to explain why they chose the number they did. The answer is revealed after the discussion has ended.
The final object is given for students to estimate. They will write down their estimate and discuss the reasons for their estimation on this object. Then the answer is revealed.
This activity provides practice estimating and it does not take a lot of class time. Prep is easy! The PowerPoints are already created for you and include detailed directions. Steve Wyborney has done a phenomenal job on his PowerPoints! It’s amazing that he is offering them for free.
You can access this activity by clicking the button below.
Esti-Mysteries for Estimating in Math
Esti-Mysteries is also a set of PowerPoint slides that you can download for free. There are over 150 Esti-Mysteries PowerPoints to use with your students. These are available for different grades levels, kindergarten through 8th.
A video showing how to use the activity is also available as well as a tips for using slides on the PowerPoint.
Esti-Mysteries combines estimation along with number sense. It is a great activity to review math vocabulary that students should know.
For this activity students will need a hundreds chart. Here is a link for a free chart if you need one.
The first slide of the PowerPoint shows a picture in which students are to estimate some objects. After they have made their estimates, a series of clues are given. The clues that are given relate to the number of objects the students are estimating.
When a clue is given students are to mark out any numbers that are not the correct amount on their hundreds chart. For example, if the clue says “The number is odd.”, the students will mark off all of the even numbers on their board because the estimate is not even. If their original estimate was an even number they will need to change their estimate.
Each time they get a clue they will mark the numbers off of their board and change their estimate if they need to. Students should be able to explain why they choose or changed their number at any time.
A total of 4 to 5 clues are given one at a time. Each time they need to change their estimate if necessary. After all of the clues are given the students will make their final estimates and discuss their reasoning with their partner. Finally, the answer is revealed.
This activity is a great way to review estimation strategies as well as math vocabulary. It does not take a lot of class time to do this weekly. While using these warm-ups students are making sense of problems and reasoning about why their answer is correct. They are explaining their reasoning and question the reasoning of other students.
Conclusion
Warm-Ups/Bell ringers are a great way to review concepts from previous grades and lessons. If you would like to read more about using warm ups in your classroom click the link below for a blog post.
Are you overwhelmed with all of the time it takes to plan your math lessons? Why not try our ready-made math unit? We have units for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. We also have Algebra 1 units as well. If you would like to try a sample lesson click the image below.
