Shamrock Estimate

We invited children to examine a jar of shamrocks today and make their best estimate of how many were in the jar. We were impressed by their reasonable guesses - 54, 67, 81, etc. - as this shows they have a solid number sense. No estimate was unreasonable (0, 1 000 000). 

We used a 100 chart to help us organize the shamrocks into an accurate count since it was such a large collection. 

There were 81! The children were excited to realize their estimates were so close!

Forcing Forsythia Branches Indoors

We brought some forsythia cuttings into the classroom today and invited the children to predict how many days it will take for the blooms to open. We also asked the children to predict what colour the blooms would be - pink was the most popular guess.

Snowflake Estimation

At entry time today the children were invited to examine our guessing jar and estimate how many snowflakes were inside! One child's estimation was right on - 20 snowflakes!

Some Ontario Curriculum this activity fulfilled includes:

NS1.6 begin to use information to

estimate the number in a small set

(e.g., apply knowledge of quantity,

use a common reference such as a

five frame)