Estimating

Your Most Sensible Guess

In the Early Years Development Matters, estimating comes under Mathematics, Number 40 – 60 months, with the target: Estimates how many objects they can see and checks by counting them.

It would be easy to whack out a worksheet to tick this target off, but it’s important to avoid worksheets at all costs in the Early Years.

To that end, I have created estimating question cards!

I do think that worksheets have their place, but for a taught topic, working with a teacher in a focus group, worksheets should be avoided at all costs.

This is just a sample of the question cards I like to use. Children answer the questions, tick their answer if they think it was a ‘sensible guess’. When I do this activity, I ask the children to glue their completed question cards onto a colourful piece of paper.

You could target the question cards by quantity for the children, with your lower attainers only completing a few question cards, and your higher attainers completing more cards. Or you could target by complexity of the question card, with your lower attainers estimating lower numbers and higher attainers estimating higher numbers.

You can download the question cards here.

I use question cards a lot in my maths lessons, if I want to do written work. Usually I use tactile resources for maths but sometimes, like with estimating, it’s difficult to show progress in a photograph.

More question cards will come soon! When I get a minute! lol