Anyone got any suggestions about teaching estimation?? Madison has the HARDEST time understanding it. We did it last year in 3rd grade, and most days she ended up in tears and I ended up with a headache. Well, we are in our 4th week of homeschool this year with her in 4th grade, and wouldn't you know it - an entire unit on estimating - ARGH!!! She can add, subract, working well on multiplication - but she just can NOT do estimating.
Matt taught 1 semester of 5th grade before he started teaching Bible at the Christian school he teaches at, and he said that estimating was one of the hardest things for his class to understand.
To me, I don't get why it is so hard for them. Not that I am super smart, I am NOT... but I just don't see what is so hard about it. So I end up getting frustrated with her because I don't see why she can't understand what I am telling her/ showing her.
Any ideas??? I have her circle the number she is estimating to, and underline the # to the right, (the # she is looking at to see if she rounds up or stays the same), even with that, she doesn't get which # she is rounding to, or that 0's go after it.
She is doing REALLY well with everything else. Her reading and understanding what she read has gotten MUCH better this year!! She is LOVING history - I am SO glad we found the book we got, it is wonderful - we both enjoy it. And science is going great too. We are working on spelling, but no major challenges there. Math is definately not her strongest point to begin with; but she usually can somewhat understand it... but this estimating stuff is getting the best of both of us. I even thought about just skipping that section; but I do think it is important for her to learn. Part of me thinks, if she can add and subtract (which she can), then maybe estimating isn't that important; but then I think about how when I buy groceries I use estimation EVERY time, as I am going through the store, and when I am checking out to see how close I will be to my budget amount.
If anyone has any ideas, please share them!!
2 comments:
I think estimating is important, but having to fully understand it at her wee age, is probably not worth the war. You have many more years for her to get it figured out. I actually think some of that stuff is not worth the fight. In fact, if it is that hard for her at this time, I would entirely skip that unit and try again another time with it.
Thanks April. Today, I didn't have much time to sit down and work 1 on 1 with her, so I had her do all the addition and subraction, but skipped the estimation for today. We may just skip it all together. You make a good point that we have more time for her to understand it; and it really is a big frustration for her. Like today, the work was - estimate this problem, then solve the problem to see how close your estimation was. Well she made 100 on the adding and subtracting, but just does not understand the estimation part. I hate skipping things entirely, but at the same time, I don't want to discourage her with something she can catch up on later. I like what you said. Thank you!!
shauna
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