Estimation Station

Using a benchmark to make an estimate is an important skill for our second graders to develop and it's one they continue to revisit through the years. Estimation Station is a really fun way to bring that skill to life in the classroom. A teammate introduced this to me a few years ago and I loved it. For some reason it didn't make it into my routine last year, but his year it's back baby!

We start it at Open House. I put out a jar of Swedish Fish (my fave!) and this sheet asking parents to guess how many fish were in the jar. {Helpful hint: ask parents to leave their guess as mom or dad, ie: Mikey's mom. It will save LOTS of time the next day}

The next day I share their parent's guesses and then we count the fish together. This year one of our parents guessed right on the nose! Since Jordan's dad had the closest guess, Jordan got to take the jar home to fill up and return on Monday. Click {here} to download the form below that I place in the empty jar to send home as well as the sign above and a label for your jar.

Now each week the estimation jar sits out from Monday to Friday and as the kids have some extra time, they are allowed to look at the jar and decide on their estimate. On Friday, I bring the jar to each table and pass out little squares of paper to have the kids write their name and estimate.

Then each table takes their estimates and lines them up on the floor in order from least to greatest and I call a few kids at a time from the other tables to add their estimates to the line-up. In the end we'll have everyone's estimates in order from least to greatest. Duplicate guesses are placed above the original.

Then we name the least guess, the greatest guess and figure out the difference between the least and greatest guesses. Finally, we count the contents of the jar together. Depending on the size of the items we'll skip count by 2's, 5's, 10's...whatever seems appropriate. Today we had a tie! Two kids estimated 100 and the actual number was 101. We did the ol' choose a number from 1-100 as a tie-breaker. So, Diego was the big winner today! He got to help pass out 3 kisses to each classmate and then he got to keep the rest and take the jar home with the responsibility to bring it back on Monday.

This becomes a much anticipated Friday morning ritual and as the year progresses it's amazing to see how much closer their guesses become.

To help the kids understand the concept of using a benchmark to estimate, I have these great books available in the math center and the kids REALLY dig them.










Happy Estimating!