How to Teach Rounding

What a weekend!!! I am so excited to say that I finished the Chicago Marathon this past Sunday, on behalf of Team in Training! What a surreal experience!
The weekend started by visiting the expo, picking up my bib number, and collecting all the the freebies. Team in Training hosted an awesome pasta party at the hotel that we stayed at. John Bingham (author, Runner’s world columnist, TNT spokesperson) gave an inspirational and comical speech about highs and lows of the race and highlighted the accomplishments of the Team in Training members

I was so honored to train and run this marathon with a new friend, Mary, who was a member of my Team in Training group. Just three years ago, Mary was going through chemotherapy. I am just amazed that she is now running a marathon- what an inspiration!!!

Needless to say, I had a great opportunity to finally get around to post this rounding lesson I taught weeks ago! Nothing like feeling pain in every part of your body to encourage you to stay on the couch!!
My third graders always struggle with rounding to the nearest 10, 100, and 1,000. This year, I tried to make a more interactive lesson to help my students understand how to use benchmark numbers when rounding.
I started by printing out the number cards and then passing out dry erase boards and materials to all of the students. After initially showing the students some examples of rounding, I gave benchmark numbers and asked the students to write their own number that could be rounded to the nearest 10, 100, or 1,000.

In this example, we were practicing rounding to the nearest hundred. I had one student hold up the number 300 and another student hold up the number 400. The rest of the students in the class then used their dry erase boards to write a number that would round to either 300 or 400. I called on students one at a time to bring their board to the front of the room. This student wrote the number 375. She asked the class, “I wrote 375. What hundred do I round to?” I then asked the student to think about what TEN they would round 375 to.

In this example, we were practicing rounding to the nearest ten. I had one student hold up the number 80 and another student hold up the number 90 to represent the benchmark numbers. I then asked the rest of the students to write a number that would round to either 80 or 90. Again, each student individually brought their board up to the class and asked “What ten/hundred/thousand do I round to?” In the example, the boy in the middle would have said, “I wrote 84. What ten do I round to?”

We practiced several more times and then moved on to rounding to the nearest 10 and 100 when there was a digit in the thousands place value.
Using this interactive model to teach rounding really helped the students understand rounding in a more abstract way, versus memorizing “rounding rules” method. After teaching this interactive method, I then reviewed the traditional method for rounding during my guided math groups.

Are you currently teaching rounding to your students? If so, I hope that you can use these number cards that I created!

Have a ROCKIN’ night!!!