Estimation.

Needing a giant for our ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ story gave us an opportunity to introduce estimation. I asked the girls ‘can you estimate how tall the giant needs to be to fit in the castle?’

Their replies centred around how ‘huge’ and ‘enormous’ giants were. ‘Bigger than a house’, ‘as tall as the clouds’ and ‘much bigger than you Mrs Bayes’.

I showed them a picture of a giant and Jack and we talked about proportion and estimation (explaining that it’s a guess). I asked them ‘If Jack is this big, how big would you estimate the giant needs to be?’

I introduced the measuring tape and asked how many centimetres the giant would need to be to fit in the castle on the wall. Using their hands they showed how tall he would be. We then measured 

their estimations;

Emma     20 centimetres            Daisy        34 centimetres
Lutia        30 centimetres             Jenesis    62 centimetres
Sophie    42 centimetres

I then climbed up with the measuring tape to measure the castle and the girls were asked to collectively agree on what height the giant should be. The consensus was 20 centimetres!

These are the giants that Lutie, Sophie, Jenesis and Daisy drew exactly 20 centimetres tall. They had to think about the proportion of body parts to make the giant look ‘just right’. Emma drew the giant for our story and it is on the wall.

Sophie

Lutie

Jenesis

Daisy