• Shape Counts Step-by-Step Lesson- We show you how to group items based on a fixed number into sets our piles.
• Guided Lesson - Take a quick estimate of what is in front of you. See how you make out.
• Guided Lesson Explanation - I always explain these by worrying about sets or groups of items.
• Practice Worksheet - A lot more practice for your students to work on independently.
• Estimate on a Number Line - I put them somewhere in between to see how the kids think, in most cases.
• Matching Worksheet - To make it easier for everyone, I put choices with in the matching problems. A loaded question I know.

• Answer Keys - These are for all the unlocked materials above.

Homework Sheets

We use circle of threes, fours, and fives to quickly estimate things. I do this with my change all the time.

• Homework 1 - I like to break images down into blocks or piles. Like when we count coins.
• Homework 2 - 3 seems like a good number to work with. Lets try to see how many circles of 3 we can make.
• Homework 3 - Choose the best estimate of total objects for all problems.

Practice Worksheets

I did these all in multiple choice format because I have never seen them in any other format on tests.

• Practice 1 - Pick a chunk value and see how many in the set fit in that chunk.
• Practice 2 - I like to create little books that I can fit a fixed number of items in and then count the total number of blocks to make a quick estimate as to the size of the total number of objects.
• Practice 3 - Some of these sets will be pretty obvious if you think about it.

Math Skill Quizzes

Once again, we stick with this tried and true strategy for learning the skill.

• Quiz 1 - I like to create different shapes to count sets for each problem. This way one group is not confused with another group.
• Quiz 2 - In this case there are a few left overs.
• Quiz 3 - I count how many total blocks I have and times that by 5.

How to Visual Estimate the Number of Things

Visual estimation is about finding the value of a certain calculation without having to get an exact answer. This is helpful to get a basic understanding of a situation. Let's say you were moving homes and were packing everything into boxes. You have no idea how many boxes you need to get. A good way to go about this would be to pack up a single room in your home and see how many boxes you used. Then just multiple the number of boxes that you used times the number of rooms you planned to pack up. This would not give the exact number of boxes, but a really good idea of where you were headed.

There are two key rules here: first is, we are not trying to get the actual answer, just get close to it. Secondly, we need estimation that is good enough to be used in place of the actual answer.

Subitizing is the skill of estimating the number of things very quickly without actually counting them. It is a skill that is often taught to children as that is the phase of neural development. A brain, during the first ten years, picks smart skills such as subitizing way too quickly than it does after that. And things learned in that age last in the memory for a lifetime.

We could count them, and it may be difficult but not impossible. But what if we are not looking for an exact answer. Just something close enough would work as well. Given there are 5 different shapes, a random guess would be there are 10 of each. 10 x 5 = 50. We estimated that there are around 50 figures in the picture above. However, the actual answer is 48. This is closer to the real answer and can be used.