Peanuts and Buttons

A Maths Starter of The Day

1. Estimate the number of peanuts in this jar.

2. A box contains some buttons. Four people estimate the number of buttons in the box. Their estimates were 135, 132, 110 and 111.

One of the estimates was nineteen out, one was two out, one was five out and the other estimate was twenty out.

How many buttons were in the box?

 

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Keywords: Starter | Estimating | Problem Solving

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    Answers

    1. There are 129 peanuts in the jar (though of course most of them can't be seen).

    2. There were 130 buttons in the box.

     
    Computer Teacher, do your students have access to computers?
    Do you have "Laptops in Lessons"?

    Whether your students each have a TabletPC or share a desktop PC, this activity lends itself to eLearning (Engaged Learning).

    Laptop

    Here is the URL which will take them to a concise version of this page.

    Transum.org/go/?Start=September19

    Students could collect everyone's estimates on a spreadsheet.

    Use this data to calculate the median estimate. The student whose estimate is closest to the median wins a peanut.

    Here's the URL which will take
    them to a student version of this activity.

    www.transum.org/go/?to=Estimate

     

    Note to teacher: Doing this activity once with a class helps students develop strategies. It is only when they do this activity a second time that they will have the opportunity to practise those strategies. That is when the learning is consolidated. Click the button above to regenerate another version of question2 from random numbers.