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 154, 120, 137 and 129.

One of the estimates was ten out, one was nineteen out, one was fifteen out and the other estimate was two 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 139 buttons in the box.

 

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.