Thrilled with their accomplishment, we are quite sure the chain gang will be very busy!
Showing posts with label estimating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label estimating. Show all posts
Friday, 20 March 2015
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Guessing Jar Math
Mrs. St. Onge's guessing jar is no ordinary guessing jar.
Mrs. St. Onge and her guessing jar are a mighty math marvel!
Throughout the day, children visit the guessing jar and estimate the amount of objects in the jar. They sign their name and write a guess on a piece of paper, adding it to a basket. A number line is handy and is a clue to help with guessing and printing numbers.
At the end of the day, she begins to get the children ready for math thinking with a familiar song, sung to the tune of 'Do You Know The Muffin Man?'
Do you know the Guessing Jar,
The Guessing Jar,
The Guessing Jar?
Do you know the Guessing Jar?
How many in the Guessing Jar?
The familiarity of the song is a clue to start the thinking of estimation.
And then she begins!
This day, there were 3-dimensional shapes in the guessing jar.
As the shapes were taken out of the jar, Mrs. St. Onge talked about them.
"How many faces on this shape?"
"This shape has a rectangle base and four triangle faces.
It's called a triangular prism."
"Who knows what we call this shape? Who wants to guess?"
"What does this shape remind you of?"
Many of our children excitedly answered what they already knew about the shapes.
She sorts each shape as they finish talking about them.
A mighty mouthful of math!
Now the shapes were sorted into five groups.
The amount of shapes in each group were counted.
Then, the amount in each group was added to a final total.
"1, 2, 3. Three rectangular prisms added to two cubes equals five shapes. Now let's add on. Let's see, where were we? 5 shapes and 1, 2, 3 triangular prisms.
How many shapes are there now?"
Mrs. St. Onge models strategies like counting each shape one by one and
using fingers to add up totals.
A mighty mind full of math!
Finally, it's time to see who has the closest guess.
It has to be a guess! No counting the shapes in the jar and putting the answer down.
As each name is drawn, the children help to decide if the guess is too high (in a high-pitched voice) or too low (in a low-pitched voice). Talk of the direction of numbers and how a two digit number is printed (eg. 81 or 18) is mentioned. The children are thanked for visiting the guessing jar and encouraged for their effort.
Winners of the guessing jar get a trip to the prize box!
Marvelous, mighty math from Mrs. St. Onge!
More tips for a guessing jar.
Vary the sizes of the jars and the sizes of the objects.
Big jar, small objects.
Small jar, big objects.
Use object groupings (eg. all dominoes, all paper clips, all dinosaurs of varying sizes, etc...)
Use language like predict, more, less, up, volume,
space, amount, estimate, total, similar, size
Thursday, 13 November 2014
Pumpkin Math
While our light table was being prepared by many friends who took turns writing numbers 1 to 100.
They made a 100 Grid chart right on the light table!
Danica's printing was so neat and she knew all the numbers without any help. She was very satisfied with her efforts!
Children were busy cutting, scooping and
s e p a r a t i n g the seeds from pumpkins.
Each child filled their own bowl with the seeds from the pumpkin they had cut open and scooped out.
This was gooey, slimy, slippery work!
Some pumpkins were small, some were flat and red, some had funny bumps and some were huge!
Once the children had scooped all the seeds they could into their bowls, they made a prediction.
How many seeds were in their pumpkin?
They came one by one to fill in a chart.
The chart had a title, 'Seed Predictions'.
The chart had 3 columns, 'Description', 'Prediction' and 'Actual'.
Miya's pumpkin was 'Big Orange Pumpkin'. She predicted 100 seeds.
Addison's pumpkin was 'FLAt PAKiN'. She also predicted 100 seeds.
Sienna was especially excited to count her pumpkin seeds. She had carved the 'ROF TOP PMPKn' and predicted 16 seeds!
Sienna counted her seeds by putting one seed in each square. She filled all 100 squares and still had 8 more. What was Sienna's actual amount?
Before he predicted and counted his own 'RAD FLaT POMPGIN'
(which he predicted to be 31 seeds),
Isaac helped Ryan and Jun count the seeds they had scooped.
Their pumpkin was a giant one! They described it as 'JANT PKIN'
and predicted 600 seeds.
They looked at Miya's number in the 'Actual' column first.
They were sure it had more than Miya's!
Miya had put 10 seeds in each square. She filled 5 lines of 10 squares in the 100 Grid with seeds and still had 7 leftover.
Well, the boys also put 10 seeds in each square.
They really had to practice to count by 10's.
They also filled 5 full lines but had 10 leftover.
Can you determine which pumpkin had more seeds?
Abigail decided her pumpkin looked nutty because it had light tan coloured bumps all over it. She called it 'NUTE PMPKN' and predicted 20 seeds.
She put one seed in each square and also filled all 100 squares.
She counted 19 left over.
How many seeds in all?
The actual amount of seeds were:
Big Orange Pumpkin, Miya - 507
FLAt PAKiN, Addison - 325
NUTE PMPKN, Abigail - 119
JANT PKIN, Jun & Ryan - 510
RAD FLaT POMPGIN, Isaac - 156
ROF TOP PKN, Sienna - 108
You can imagine the fun discussions we had as we gathered together and the children talked about their pumpkins and how many seeds they had predicted and counted!
We can imagine the fun discussions you will have talking about our pumpkin math!
Now the pumpkins are in the 'Decomposition Centre' under the windows in the front of the school near our side door. Check them out when you come by.
What's happening to them?
We are waiting for Riverside Library to call and tell us when
is ready for us to pick up!
Sunday, 25 August 2013
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