About how many steps are there from the top to the bottom?

How do you know?

What did you notice that helped you estimate?

What makes estimating the number of steps hard?

3, 4, 5, 6+

Seeing mathematics in the world

Attending to and using structure

Decomposing and using benchmarks to estimate

Thinking in equal groups

Using units to count, measure, and compare

For grades 4+, after the class has discussed the questions above, you can extend this activity by posing the following questions:

How high up do you think the top of this staircase is?

How could you estimate?

What would you need to know?