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Today I’m sharing another free printable for counting to ten: number cards! And I’ll also show you five quick ways to use them with your learners.
Activity 1: Match the numbers
First, I placed a row of cards on the table. Together, my three-year-old and I named the numbers one by one.
Then I gave my her a stack of matching cards and showed her how to place each card under its match.
Finally, we named the numbers one more time.
Activity 2 – Put the numbers in order
For this activity we worked on counting and putting the numbers in order. Since my Three is still shaky on number recognition, we only worked with numbers 1-5.
Activity 3- Memory game
After that, we did one of her favorites: Memory! I placed two sets of numbers 0-5 upside down on the table. Then we took turns drawing two cards and looking for a match.
Activity 4 – Count objects
Our fourth activity involved counting objects for each number. Pom poms are a favorite manipulative!
Game 5- Number hunt
Finally, we went on a number hunt. I placed the cards in our toy kitchen and in other obvious places around the playroom. She found each one as I called for it.
I have to say that I’ve been really pleased at how well she’s doing with our counting bin activities. She is learning to count more than three objects with accuracy and recognizes almost all of the numbers up to ten.
The number 10 still has her stumped, though.
The other day she was “reading” a counting board book. She hopped off the couch and brought the book to me, pointing to the page with the 10.
“Mommy, what’s this num-beh? Googolplex?”
It seems a bit ironic that she is still learning to count and recognize her numbers, but knows about googolplex! I hadn’t even heard of it until a few years ago, when one of my boys told me that it’s a one followed by a googol zeroes.
Rest assured, this series only teaches counting up to ten. 🙂
See the whole series here
Get our preschool math curriculum!
© 2017 – 2020, Anna G. All rights reserved.
Karen says
Could you make the numbers and ten frame activities available up to 20–then I could use them at the beginning of the year with my Firsties. Thanks. I LOVE your “stuff” and often adapt it to use with my Firsties. It’s the Printables that limit what I can do.
Anna G says
Hi Karen – I created this series to focus just on counting to 10, so I won’t be adding to it. But be sure to check out the math section on my free printables page – it has a variety of activities that go up to 20.
Roberta Miller says
Thank you for your activities. I love your stuff.
Anna G says
You’re welcome, Roberta!
Celia Lopez says
Thank You for sharing!!!!!!!! God Bless You
Anna G says
You’re very welcome, Celia!
Christina says
Thank you so much for sharing your useful, fun, child friendly resources.
Anna G says
You’re welcome, Christina!
Michell fraser says
I am Michell a Kindergarten teacher. Thanks for your number cards. I have developed a fun way to help my kids learn their number and number names. I pass out number cards to some and the other cards have the number of items ( I hope you guys understand), then I say ‘freeze’ and at the count of three they have one minute to find their partner and hold that person’s hand. So if one child has seven the other should have seven things attached to their card. This helps with learning the number names and counting. The kids love it. I also do it with upper and lower case letters, numbers and number names.
Anna G says
Thank you for sharing this fantastic idea, Michell! I love it!