How Many Bears Do You See?

The Counting Jar is a Math Workshop activity designed to help students develop strategies for accurately counting and keeping track of quantities. Students also learn to create an equivalent set and represent quantities with numbers, pictures and words. We put a set of blue and red bears in the Counting Jar. The students look at the jar and make a guess at how many bears they think are in the jar. We talk to the boys and girls about making a "good" guess. Once they decide on a number, they record their answer on a sticky note. The children place their sticky notes on a numberline. We discuss which number had the most, least, and equal amounts of guesses. We check our guesses and count the bears in the jar. Once the students learn how many bears were in the counting jar, they can determine how close their guess was. They record their guess and the right answer on paper using numbers, pictures and words.