Jelly Bean Estimation

We began this week with a jar of jelly beans. I told my class that at the end of the week they would be giving me their estimation of how many jelly beans were in the jar. They greatly anticipated the end of the week. Each day some students wanted to know if it was the day that we would be doing the jelly beans. Other students wanted to give me their answers.

On Thursday (couldn't do it on Friday, because of our field trip) I displayed the jar of jelly beans and told the students that I would be asking for their estimations. Everyones hand went up and they were ready to give me their guess. I asked them to put their hands down and told them that it was not going to be that simple. I asked them to take out their math journal and write the question at the top of their page. I informed them that I wouldn't accept just any guess, they had to diagram the jelly bean jar and explain to me how they got their answer. I wrote the question on my paper and modeled how I would begin drawing my jar of jelly beans. I also did a think aloud and talked about having a number of jelly beans on the bottom and layers. After students diagramed their jar they had to write their explanation of how they estimated the number in the jar and then write their estimation at the bottom of the page.

Once everyone had their estimate I wrote their answers on the board. They were very confident in their answers, so as I begin erasing numbers there were gasps throughout the room. With great drama; discussing how students got their answers; and having students adjust their estimates; we finally narrowed it down to the two closes answers before bringing out the answer sheet. The winners each got to take home a small bag of jelly beans and everyone else was rewarded with two jelly beans for their hard work .

The reason I share this activity with you is that, because of the changes at our school and with common core, I am really beginning to see how students can do the same type of activities, but still really move to a higher level of thinking. In the past this would have been a simple "Guess how many jelly beans are in the jar?" activity, but it turned into a half hour long very intense thought provoking activity. It was definitely higher level thinking. I truly enjoyed it and so did my students.

Happy Easter!!!