2, 4, 6, 8, Our Counting Skills are Really Great!

We are crazy for skip counting!

Over the last few weeks, as we have explored numbers to 100, we have practiced skip counting:

• by 2's to 20
• by 5's to 100
• by 10's to 100

Learning to skip count helps us count large groups of items accurately and efficiently.

The skip counting chains we made on our 100th day have been very helpful!

Today students were given bags of manipulatives and were asked to count the items. Part of the challenge of using skip counting is figuring out how to count leftover items. 

We tried the challenge as a class with this pile of items:

We collaborated to group the items into 10's:

10, 20, 30 ... 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39!

Then we tried counting the same pile of items using skip counting by 5's:

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 ..., 36, 37, 38, 39!

Students got into pairs to count their own pile of manipulatives! Here are some groups hard at work:

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 ...41!

10, 20, 30, ... 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36!

We are getting so good at counting large sets, that we can even do it with our eyes closed!

10, 20, 30, 40 ..., 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46!

The students are on their way to becoming skip counting experts, but please continue practice at home. These skills need to be automatic before being successfully applied in counting situations such as these. Why not practice in the car or in line at the grocery store? 

Happy counting!