Estimating is difficult to get your head around in Grade 1! We all want to count to get the "right" answer. It is hard for children to understand why they just can't count the objects. If I ask them to make a guess, they often seem to think that I am trying to "trick" them, and then they guess a wild number :)
Why do we need to learn estimating?
Estimation is a higher-level skill (than simply counting) that requires students to be able to coceptualize and mentally manipulate numbers (Van de Walle).
1) Without estimation skills, students aren’t able to determine if their answer is within a reasonable range.
2) Estimating helps children to learn the concept of how quantities relate to each other.
We will continue estimating throughout the year, throughout different math strands. For now we are focusing on estimating as it relates to quantity.
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