Not Just A Guess

We have been discussing cats and dogs in our class.

Recently we read the book MILLIONS OF CATS. We enjoyed the story about the old man going on a journey to find the most beautiful and perfect cat for his wife. He saw "Hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats". They all fought with each other. For each and every one thought they were the most beautiful. But the old man chose a very shy and homely little cat. After he and his wife fed the cat, brushed the cat, and loved the cat, it truly was the most beautiful cat of all!!

In our classroom we have a display showing pictues of many cats. We have talked about all of the different cats and wondered just how many there are. During our discussion we learned that there is a big difference in a guess and an estimation. If you ask the boys and girls in our class they will quickly tell you that an estimation is an intellegent guess. It involves studying and thinking. After much study and thought, each child told me what they estimated to be the number of cats on display.

After a couple of days of more time and study, the answer was revealed. There are 63 cats on the display!! WOW!! That's alot of cats. Caleb estimated there were 60 cats. He sure made and intellegent guess!! Caleb did some outstanding estimating. For the great work, I rewarded Caleb with a new 100 piece puzzle!!! I am so proud of Caleb and all of the other boys and girls who did such good work.