Children's Museum of Houston

What you need

• Pencil Paper
• List of the cost of the letters Play letters (optional)
• Calculator (optional)

What to do

1. Pretend you are in charge of making signs for businesses. 
2. You get paid according to the letters in the sign that you make. 
3. The letter A is worth $1, the letter B is worth $2, C is worth $3, and so on until you get to Z which is worth $26.
4. For the problems that follow, make an estimate of the cost of the sign first. Explain how you get your estimates.
5. Then check your estimate to see how close you were.

What to ask

• What strategies helped you estimate?
• Can you use skip counting or multiplication to help you?
• What qualities of a word or sentence make it “expensive?”

Did you know?

What’s next?

•  Have a contest to see who can come up with the most expensive word or sentence.
•  Make vowels worth double their amount.
• Talk about what would happen if Z = $1 and A = $26.
• Estimate the cost of groceries in the cart before checking out.
• If you really sold signs, what would be a reasonable way to charge for making letters?
• Should some letters be more expensive than others?
• What about the style and size of the letter?
• Make up you own payment plan for making signs.