Rounding Numbers

Rounding Numbers

Does your child struggle with roudning and estimating numbers? A strategy that I use to teach my grade 3's is to use a number line. To round to the nearest tens, students use a number line. I get the students to first mark a dot on the number being rounded (79) for example. Then they have to underline the two possible tens that 79 could jump to. These would be, 70 or 80. Then the students draw a jumping line going both ways and see which has the fewest jumps. 80 is closer to 79, therefore 79 would round to 80. 

To round to the nearest hundred, we use the same technique. Students will mark the number (130) and the two possible hundreds (100 or 200). Then they can estimate. 50 is half of one hundred. Therefore, if a number is 50 or more students round up. If a number is 49 or lower, they round down. Since 30 is less than 50, students would round down to 100. 

 

Happy rounding! :)