My computer was being upgraded to Windows 8, so I didn’t have a computer for 1st hour.  My first hour is my math recovery class (i.e. students who had failed a previous high school math class.)  We usually start out doing Visual Patterns or Estimation 180, so I hoped that I was able to keep the first part of the class productive.

Enter Questimate.  If you have never seen this amazing, engaging, fascinating ipad app before, you are in for a treat.  Made by Motion Math, the players come up with their own estimation questions from a list of choices.  For example, how many blue whale tongues are as heavy as a Marlin?  Or:

My favorite is when they can size the objects themselves:

The kids in this math class are not thrilled with school in general, as you can imagine.  They were all totally engaged with Questimate.  I gave each kid a chance to create a question and estimate an answer.  Happy kids, Happy teacher. It was a great class period.