Comparing and estimating in class

In this post, we are going to address something which is essential to teach our youngest children, those who are going to learn how to measure soon. Before that, students of the first and second courses of Primary Education should learn to compare and estimate objects and lengths. This will help them in the future to understand and operate with measurement units.

First of all, our students need to acquire comparison concepts: what is longer, shorter, smaller, higher, etc. The best way to do it is through games because they create an enjoyable atmosphere in class and learning occurs without realising. Some simple and feasible games can be carried out in class just taking a wide variety of school materials. Divided into different groups, children will choose the object that the teacher asks for. For instance, the biggest rubber or the longest rule. It can be a kind of competition to make the game more exciting. In this way, our students will learn to distinguish between objects making different comparisons. Once it has been achieved, we can start to order all the objects by its size building several series. The following video can be used to introduce the children to this topic.

Once our learners can compare, it’s time to estimate sizes and measures. It can be done also with the same planning as in the first game. However, in this case, we will ask our groups of learners for different aspects and then, we will check them. If our learners are very young, we will start by asking them if something fits in a place. For example, if a chair fits into a student’s bag. If they have more knowledge about measurement, we can ask them for the length of several objects present in the classroom. For instance, the length of their desks or the window. The children can make the estimations in their minds using the metric system or the system that they want (if they can estimate using a pencil or another specific object). The aim is that their brains start to imagine and think about the issue of measurement. In this way, we are familiarizing their eyes with the concepts of space, distance and length. Finally, we can add this video to our explanation and games to help our learners to compare and estimate.