Betcha!: Estimating (MathStart)
Stuart J. Murphy, S. D. SchindlerBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
What do cars, toys, people, and jelly beans have in common? They can all be estimated. Two friends try out their estimating skills and find out that estimating can have real rewards––especially when there’s a contest to enter!
Uses a dialog between two friends, one who estimates, one who counts precisely, to show estimation at work in everyday life.
Synopsis
What do cars, toys, people, and jelly beans have in common? They can all be estimated. Two friends try out their estimating skills and find out that estimating can have real rewards––especially when there’s a contest to enter!
Children's Literature
One in a series of "MathStart" books designed to integrate reading and math skills such as comparing sizes, matching dividing, etc. This particular booklet is designed for level 3 or ages 7 and up. Betcha! focuses on estimating, and features two young friends who challenge each other to come up with a correct answer on determining such quantities as the number of jelly beans in a jar, riders on a bus and cars in a traffic jam. There are suggestions for adults and children to try other estimating activities at the end of the book. The emphasis is on math as the reading level is pretty elementary. Cartoon-like drawings accompany the story.
Editorials
Children's Literature -
One in a series of "MathStart" books designed to integrate reading and math skills such as comparing sizes, matching dividing, etc. This particular booklet is designed for level 3 or ages 7 and up. Betcha! focuses on estimating, and features two young friends who challenge each other to come up with a correct answer on determining such quantities as the number of jelly beans in a jar, riders on a bus and cars in a traffic jam. There are suggestions for adults and children to try other estimating activities at the end of the book. The emphasis is on math as the reading level is pretty elementary. Cartoon-like drawings accompany the story.School Library Journal
Gr 3-4On their way to a store sponsoring a contest that involves guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar, two friends encounter situations that involve numerical determinations; e.g., how many people are on the bus, the number of cars in a traffic jam. One boy counts one by one to obtain the answers, whereas the other one uses simple techniques to come up with near estimations. The easy-to-read picture-book format with only one or two sentences per page will appeal to reluctant readers, and the boys' urban environment provides common situations to which many students will easily relate. The uncomplicated drawings show how the boy's brain is processing data and the skills he employs to arrive at an educated guess. The last two pages give suggestions and ideas for adults to help children further their understanding of the concept. A short list of similar concept books is included. This title will be especially useful for classroom use as it provides many possibilities for related activities.Stephani Hutchinson, Pioneer Elementary School, Sunnyside, WAPlaying with numbers—that's what this book from Murphy (The Best Vacation Ever, 1997, etc.) is all about. Part of the MathStart series, this entry introduces the art of estimation. Two boys are engaged in the project, one estimating, the other counting. Their ultimate goal is to try to figure out how many jelly beans are in a big glass jar and win tickets to a sporting event, but the storyline bows deeply to the emphasis on estimation as a process. As the boys head downtown to the toy store and the jelly beans, they estimate the number of people on the bus, the numbers of cars in a traffic jam, the total prices of goods in a window, all the while demonstrating both rounding off and how to count a small number and apply that to the great, uncounted whole through the use of multiplication, fractions, and simple geometry. Murphy's success is in beveling the sharp, unforgiving reputation of math and in showing how numbers can be toyed with. Readers may come away with the sense that they are not slaves to numbers—it's the other way around.