My class has gotten quite confident at estimating but don’t confuse confidence with accuracy. Instead, it is exciting to see that my students are confidently making guesses which is a wonderful start in promoting their mathematical thinking skills…
For this simple estimating activity the children started by making a circle on a piece of paper with a pencil…
After drawing the circle, the children guessed how many cheerios might fit into their circle. Â Some of the children drew a very small circle and easily guessed that just one cheerio would fit. Others drew a large circle and had to give their guess a little more thought…
The children filled their circles with cheerios to find out how many cheerios would actually fit in their circle…
Some of the circles held a lot of cheerios – too many to really count! But the children gave their very best effort and continued to draw circles and use the cheerios to somehow fill their circles up…
The children explored the cheerios and circles and interpreted the process in many different ways…
And in case you were wondering, we had cheerios for part of our snack just before we used them to estimate…
A simple process to invite our students to combine a little math with writing and an excellent opportunity to use language like bigger, smaller, circle, estimate, count, actual, most, least, more, and less…
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
The Estimation Station by Teach Preschool
Roll & Paint – Math and Art Together by No Time for Flashcards
Estimation Jars and Brain Breaks by  Crunchy and Green
Learning with Cheerios in Preschool by Teach Preschool
