• Estimation Station Archive

    When my almost 7-year-old was in preschool, she brought home a plastic jar filled with pom poms and declared that she needed to count each and every one of them. “Huh?,” I thought. “I’m not exactly sure that’s what your teachers had in mind,” I gently replied. We all remember the “guess how many jellybeans are in the jar, and win a prize!”-type contests. For some it was pure delight–can I count to one gazillion?–and for other kids, a source of frustration. “How can I know for sure if I don’t count them one by one?,” rationalized my daughter, teetering on the brink of a fit. Taking an educated guess is a great life-long skill that can be refined over time, so it certainly helps [&hellip

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