Bear Necessities of Rounding

Counting Bears have been a bear necessity for our home school.

I remember eyeing them in Wal-mart,

waiting for the day I could afford them.

When I found another set at a garage sale,

I was ecstatic. 

It felt better than that dream

of picking up money in the streets,

cuz this was real.

Doesn't take much to make the

Momma of home-teached kids happy,

does it?

 

I said that on purpose - remember the name of my blog?

Any-hoo, we were trying to learn the

concept of rounding to the nearest ten.

As always, the first time a concept can be introduced,

it can be confusing.

First time mastery brings confidence and enjoyment to any subject.

I pulled out my pile of tricks from overstuffed and underorganized shelves and got to work.

We started with the laminated number line that goes from 1-100.

A small bear was placed on the number 18,

the number we needed to round.

Rebekah had to tell me the two tens her number was between,

in this case 10 and 20.

Large bears were placed on the tens.

If your items aren't different sizes, you could differentiate with colors.

At a glance, she could tell the 18 was closer to the 20.

(double-click to enlarge and print)

We repeated with different numbers,

emphasizing the rule~

numbers ending in 1-4

are rounded down,

numbers ending in 5-9

are rounded up.

Yep, counting bears

are the bear necessities

of a hOme tEaChEd life.