Happy hump day ~ it’s already Wednesday friends!
I wanted to talk to you guys today about the strategy of ‘counting on‘. What exactly does that mean, and what does it look like? Counting on is when you start with the larger number in a number sentence and count on the smaller number. This truly makes more sense than starting with the smaller number. It’s more efficient and takes much less time.
There are so many ways to help your students with this:
1.) Give your students a number chart to 120. They can find the number on it: say 107 and color it in or place a marker on it. Then count on from there the 2nd number. 107 + 3 = 110.
2.) On a worksheet or white boards once they have several problems have them circle the larger number and count on from there.
3.) Grab my Counting On Math Mats and have them do a hands on approach. They will love this hands on and engaging activity. The left side of the mat is where they place the bigger number and smash it down with their fist while saying it. Then they count on from there. You can grab it ( here ) for only $2.
4. ) Use unifex cubes as another hands on way to count on.
They will tap their head and say the bigger number than count off the cubes they need to add on and count on from there.
Lastly if you use touch points ( which when I taught first it worked great for the little ones that had trouble ). They can use touch point cards to literally count on.
I hope this has been helpful and you can truly feel successful with your littles that are struggling with this concept. Let me know if you tried any of these in the past. Happy teaching!
xo,
