Rounding Roundup

What is it about the skill of rounding that is so difficult for third graders, and beyond? I just do not understand, but every year the students seem to have a hard time grasping the concept of estimation and often we end up spending extra time going through the same math skills to allow more time for students to master this important skill. So many other skills build off of this one, so I want my students to have a good grasp before moving along. I know this cannot just be me. 

Mastering the Skill of Rounding

Here are some things that have helped me along the way while teaching my students about rounding:

1. First, I discovered this little chant that easily gets stuck in their heads and has all the steps for rounding. I use it to demonstrate rounding work. 

Mark your place.

Look next door. 

Five or greater,

Add one more. 

Numbers in front,

Stay the same. 

Numbers behind, 

zero's their name. 

This little rhyme seemed to make the biggest difference this year overall in the mastery of the skill of rounding. I found this one over at Lucky Little Learners and it saved my sanity, seriously! 

2. I have tried this rounding game activity in the past and it was a more hands on way of doing rounding. It worked, and I loved it...but it took so long. However, most students were able to master the skill with a ton of practice. 

3. Regular math books. We use Go Math for our curriculum, so we go through the unit on Place Value, and that introduces that skill of rounding. 

Rounding Math Reinforcement

This year, I knew that after we learned the skill, we would need time to continue practicing and reinforcing it for higher success and to make it stick with the students even better. I decided that I wanted to create some center games for math time that students could rotate through to continue practicing this very important estimation skill. So, I created four Rounding Rodeo themed games for my classroom to try out. They have been having fun using these and continuing to build their mastery of rounding. 

Rounding Games

The first game is:

Western Roundup

In this game students will roll a die to advance their pawn around the board which is designed like an old western town. If they land on a black number, they will round to the 10's place. If they land on a red number they round to the 100's. Each time that a number is correctly estimated, the student will pick up the horse game piece with the matching number. Continue around the board until all horses are gone. Whoever rounded up the most horses wins the game. 

 

Rounding Rodeo: an I-Spy Game:

In this game, students flip over a card and race to find the correctly rounded number on a board filled with rodeo clipart and numbers. It is like a giant scavenger hunt. The student who correctly finds the number first will place a chip or marker over the number. Whoever has the most chips or markers on the board at the end wins the game. 

Rounding Race

In this game, students race to be the first one around the trail of spaces on the board. After flipping a number card over, students spin a spinner that tells them if they will round to the tens or hundreds. After rounding correctly, the student will spin another spinner to see how far they can move along the trail. Along the way are a scattering of spaces that allow the students to advance extra, or could cause them to return a few spaces or even miss a turn. 

Round 'em Up

In this game, students take turns drawing a card. Each card asks them to round a certain number to either the tens or hundreds place. After rounding, the student will keep their card. Students will continue taking turns. Occasionally on a turn, students will draw one of these two cards: Ouch! or YeeHaw!

In that case....

For the ouch card, students will return one of their cards. For the yeehaw card, they will return all of their cards. They do not return the ouch or yeehaw cards through, just set those to the side. When the cards run out or time ends, students will count their points. Each horse card counts for one point, and each bull card counts for five. Whoever has the most points, wins.  

Round Up Four

Students choose a spinner. Different spinners allow for different levels of play. The spinners go all the way from basic rounding of three-digit numbers to rounding six-digit numbers. 

In this game, students will roll the amount of dice that correspond to the spinner they choose. They will line up the dice in any order and then spin the spinner. The student will round the number according to the spinner space they landed on. If the answer is right, they can cover one space on the playing board. The students will take turns going back and forth. Whoever covers four in a row first is the winner. 

Future Plans for Math Center Rotations

It is my goal to continue creating math center activities for each math unit. I feel that this will continue to allow my students to spiral through the math skills already learned and retain those important skills better. We can do better than teaching math in a one-and-done way. 

You can find the resources mentioned right here.