Preschool Learning: Estimation Station Math Activity

Estimating is a good guess. But can young children estimate? Well, all this week we've been building your child's number sense. So now, we'll take it to the next level. The idea is to encourage your child to make good guesses and to talk about how they are figuring out their guess.
What you need:

• Clear containers (baby food jars, plastic sandwich bags)
• Small objects (buttons, pretzels, jelly beans, colorful paper clips, pennies, pompoms)
• Sheet of paper
• Pencil

How to do it:

• Fill each container with one kind of object.
• Have your child estimate how many items are in each container.
• Get the rest of your family in on it too! Have them make a guess!
• Write down everyone's guess.
• Older children can be encouraged to draw a chart as a means to visually compare each person's estimation.
• Then open up the jars and start counting. How close did your child come to guessing the correct amount?
• The person who guessed the closest to the actual amount, wins the jar and everything inside it!

Brain-Builder Bonus: Keep on estimating! Have your child guess the cost of a toy, the time it takes to get home from the playground, the distance to Grandma's house, etc.

How this builds brains: Being a good estimator will help your child also be good at rounding, greater/less than, and even word problems in later years. When you play this activity, listen to your child's guesses. If they're way off, then go back and do more counting to answer the question "How much?" The better your kid's number sense becomes, the more successful at estimating she'll be!
Get more brain-building activities for preschool learning! Check out our Brain Building Boot Camp with Dr. Christine Ricci.