Tenner the Giraffe

Tenner is a tall, gentle giraffe with a long neck and a soft spotted coat. Because she is so tall, Tenner can reach up to things nobody else can reach. And the thing Tenner loves to reach for most is the nearest friendly ten.

Tenner has one calm, clever idea: “Reach a number up to its nearest tidy ten, and you can make a quick, close guess.”

One afternoon the town animals are planning a big square garden. “It’s going to be twenty-three lots along one side, and four rows deep,” says a busy squirrel, scribbling. “How many little lots is that? Oh no, twenty-three is a lumpy number…”

Tenner stretches her long neck up and smiles. “Twenty-three is close to a friendly ten,” she says. “It’s close to twenty - just three past it. So reach it up to twenty for a moment, only to guess.” Her neck reaches up, up, to the tidy ten. “Twenty, four rows deep… twenty, forty, sixty, eighty. So the garden is about eighty lots.”

The squirrel’s eyes go wide. “About eighty! That’s a quick guess!”

“It is only a guess,” Tenner says gently. “A close one, to get ready with. Twenty-three is a little MORE than twenty, so the real answer will be a little more than eighty. When you want to be sure, you tile it out for real and count. But a friendly-ten guess tells you what to expect - so no answer can surprise you.”

That is Tenner’s whole clever idea.

Reach up to the nearest friendly ten for a quick, close guess - then tile it to be sure.

The squirrel makes his guess - about eighty - and then the animals lay out the real garden and count it properly. And Tenner’s guess was close, just as she said. The tidy ten got them ready.

A grown-up can play too! Pick a lumpy number of tiles in a row - like twenty-three. Ask: what tidy ten is it nearest? (Twenty.) Reach it up to twenty and skip-count the rows for a quick guess. Say it out loud: “about eighty.” Then lay out the real twenty-three and count for sure, and see how close your friendly-ten guess was. Reaching up to the ten first makes the real count feel easy and un-scary.

That is rounding to the friendly ten. The tidy tens are the kindest numbers to work with, so reach a lumpy number up to its nearest ten, make a quick close guess, then tile it to be certain.

When her friendly-ten guess turns out close and the real garden is nearly what she said, Tenner feels a warm, steady calm - the good feeling of being ready, of not being caught by surprise. She lowers her long neck and beams. “Reach up to the ten,” she says. “Guess close. Then count for sure.”