Greater Estimations by Bruce Goldstone

Greater Estimations by Bruce Goldstone.

When it comes to guessing how many jellybeans are in a jar, I've always been WAY off, but after reading Bruce Goldstone's Greater Estimations, I might have a standing chance. A follow-up to Goldstone's 2006 Great Estimations, this book gives three strategies for making estimations that are as close to the actual number as possible: eye training, clump counting, and box and count.

The book starts out with a page full of rubber duckies lined up above the text, "The ducks are coming! About how many rubber ducks are marching toward you?" This is the same image that you see on the cover.

When you flip the page, you see 100 ducks in groups of 10, and on the opposite page, there are 100 more ducks in a mambo line. These two pages serve as the introduction to the "eye training" strategy, showing readers how to train their eyes to see 100 ducks. And on the next page, we see 1,000 ducks and 10,000 on the opposite page.

Throughout the book, Goldstone demonstrates the three estimation strategies using pictures of popcorn kernels, groups of skydivers, bees, plastic animals, glow-in the dark stars, red blood cells, and more to estimate number, length, height, weight, and volume.

While all of this estimating can be fun for kids, Goldstone points out in his author's note in the back of the book that estimation is a very helpful tool in real life for many professionals like doctors, astronomers, carpenters, scientists, and even event planners.

This would be a helpful and fun book in math and science classrooms!


More info:

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); 1st edition (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805083154
• ISBN-13: 978-0805083156
• Source: Library
  

What Others Are Saying:

Lysc's Weblog: "The picture book would support the topic which is difficult for many to comprehend.Students will be mesmerized by the illustrations as the number of items increase on the pages an optical illusion effect is perceived." (read more...)

The Hour Online: "Math dude Goldstone follows up his 2006 "Great Estimations" with this fact-packed collection that shouts: 'Numbers are fun!'" (read more...)