Math Monday: Number Patterns and Skip Counting

Welcome to my first Math Monday post! I'm hoping to post some math ideas or strategies to use in your classroom every Monday. Up first is number patterns and skip counting in first grade! 

As an Interventionist, I work with students who are struggling in Math and need extra support. In first grade, students are expected to be able to count forwards and backwards to 120 (starting from any number) and skip count by 10's 5's and 2's. They should also be able to identify 10 more, 10 less or 1 more, 1 less than a given number. 

In my math group last week, we focused on the counting standards. I like to have lots of hands-on games so the students are practicing these skills in different ways. Of course, we counted orally every day. Sometimes we would count all together and sometimes we would count in a circle where each person took a number. 

To help my students see the numbers they were counting, I created number cards (counting by ones, twos, fives and tens) for them to put in order. We then would count aloud using the cards as a guide:

We used the counting by ones cards a lot to practice counting backwards. I would have a student use my pointer and we would count together:

In addition to number cards, we used different math manipulatives and tools to skip count. To practice counting by tens, we used ten sticks:

 

I created a matching game with tallies so my students could practice counting by fives:

 

Finally, we also created our own hundreds charts by filling in the missing numbers. Last week we filled in the numbers counting by tens. Later we will create one counting by ones, fives and twos:

All of these activities and more are in my new math unit about number patterns. Check it out by clicking on the picture below!

First three people to comment with their email get a free copy!