Guess What? You're Solving Math

How guess and check can build strong confident math learners.

We don’t teach math so students can spend their lives solving math facts, we teach it because it uniquely strengthens the prefrontal cortex. This is the brain’s problem-solving area, responsible for decision-making, critical thinking, and creativity. Learning math is ultimately about learning new ways to think.

One powerful strategy that fosters this kind of thinking is Guess and Check, especially effective for elementary and middle-grade students. It mirrors scientific reasoning: students form a hypothesis, test it, and revise based on the results. Guess and Check builds perseverance, sharpens logic, and nurtures deep mathematical understanding.

🧠 When Should Students Use the Guess and Check Strategy?

Students might use this strategy when:

• They aren’t sure where to begin and want to explore possible solutions.
  
  
• A problem involves finding a number or a set of numbers that meet certain conditions.
  
  
• The math is too complex to solve algebraically at their grade level.
  
  
• They can easily test their guesses to see if they work.
  
  

💡 The Mental Processes Behind Guess and Check

When students engage in Guess and Check with intention, they develop several important habits of mind:

• Reasoning and Estimation: Students don’t just guess randomly—they make informed guesses based on clues in the problem.
  
  
• Reflection: After trying a guess, they reflect on whether the answer is too high, too low, or on the right track.
  
  
• Pattern Recognition: They often notice patterns in how their guesses affect the outcome, which refines future guesses.
  
  
• Perseverance: If a guess doesn’t work, students try again. This resilience is crucial to building confidence in problem-solving.
  
  
• Self-correction: Students practice reviewing their own logic, checking calculations, and adjusting accordingly.
• ‍
  
  

2nd grade:

There are 7 coins in the pouch. Some are pennies, some are nickels, some are dimes. All together there is 33 cents. How many of each coin is in the bag?

3rd grade: 

If each number is a group is 1 greater than the one before it, in consecutive order, what three consecutive numbers have the sum of 66?

4th grade:

I have a number. Add 8 to my number and the sum is less than twice my number. Subtract 6 from my number and the difference is 1 less than half of my number. What is my number?

5th grade:

Put the digits 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 9 into the squares to make two addends with the sum of 705.

   🟦🟦🟦

+ 🟦🟦🟦

    7   0   5

‍

6th grade: 

‍

✅ Final Thought

While Guess and Check nurtures mathematical thinking, builds number sense, and fosters the kind of resilient mindset students need to tackle more complex problems as they grow.

‍