Table Talk Math:
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Estimating While Driving
How many pipes are stacked on the bed of the truck?
How did you count?
On our way to baseball practice last week, my family and I were approaching the back of a shipping truck carrying a whole bunch of steel pipes. From the back, my 6 year-old belted out, "wow, that's a lot of pipes!"
It sure was! Where were they heading? What could they be used for? How much is all that steel worth? While those questions ran through my mind, two others were more accessible: how many do you see, and how did you count?
My youngest, 4 years young, went with his upper bound: "A ZILLION!"
My oldest, the 6 year-old, started counting. Well, I wasn't about to sit behind this truck for two hours, so I had him count as much as he could and then guess. He has not yet learned multiplication, so his counting to 27 and guess of 500 was just that: a guess.
Clothesline Math
All you need for this activity is:
- string or clothesline
- sheets of paper
- a marker
- two chairs
"Hey kids, I need your help putting these numbers in order. Do you think you could do it for me?"
Prepare a stack of sheets of paper folded in half, each with a number on it, ready to be put onto the clothesline that is strung up between two dining room chairs.
Children can spend around 5 minutes noticing, wondering, and exploring the number line by sliding sheets of paper across a string, spacing them out accordingly as more information becomes available.
Next, try doing sums:
1+5
3+6
2+4
...and so on
Click here to see this activity in action.
At clotheslinemath.com, there are ideas aplenty for children of all ages, including high school students. Chris Shore has built a variety of clothesline ideas for middle and upper grade levels, so please take a look!
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Estimation Math
Introducing Esti-Mysteries! Each image invites students to wonder what number is represented by the image. As you click through the each Esti-Mystery, clues will appear that will allow the students to use math concepts to narrow the set of possibilities to a small set of numbers. In the end, the students will need to call upon their estimation skills to solve the mystery and find the missing number.
Click here to go to the Esti-Mysteries: Estimation Meets Math Mysteries website.
Here is an example:
Problem of the Week
