I’ve been teaching skip counting in kindergarten for years. Each year I do it a little different, but use the Rainbow Skip Counting set from the Kinder Craze store during our study. This year I finally discovered the secret for harnessing my student’s motivation and transforming them into skip counting experts overnight. This trick is so simple, I cannot believe it took me this long to discover the secret.
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Before I share the secret with you, let me back up a few steps…
Before we dove into our skip counting unit, I pulled my students aside and asked each child to skip count for me as a quick pre-assessment. First by 10s, then by 5s.
Nearly every student could skip count by 10s. (Awesome!)
Only one child in my class could skip count by 5.
Not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed. We HAD been tallying our days of school and counting the tallies nearly every day. We were well past 100 tally marks and we had also been rocking out and skip counting with Dr. Jean.
I knew my students had been exposed to these numbers and even recited them with me on a regular basis so I was hoping they just needed a little jump start to ignite the skip counting expertise.
That day after school, I pulled out my “I Can Count by 5s Chart” (available in my Rainbow Skip Counting pack) and displayed it right beside the tally chart on my classroom easel.
(I’ve had lots of requests for the tally chart I use in my classroom. You can download a free copy by entering your email below!)
Ok, back to my story…
When it was time for math the next morning, I gathered my students by the calendar and showed them our brand new skip counting chart. I also explained how it used rainbow colors to help us see the pattern when we skip count.
At this point, my kindergarten students thought my skip counting chart was basically the coolest thing ever. So I asked if they wanted to try and skip count with me. And of course, they said yes. So I pointed and we skip counted all the way up to 100.
And then the real fun began. I pulled out a set of worksheets that look a lot like my special skip counting chart. There was just one problem. All of the count-by-5 numbers were missing from the worksheet charts. I explained that it was their job to add the missing numbers with their pencil and when they were done, they would need to make a rainbow of their numbers to match the ones on the chart.
I wanted the charts to be accurate and without errors so I looked over each child’s chart before granting them permission to trace with marker. Once they finally had those markers in their hands, it was pure magic. My kids went to town!
I had each child use their newly-created chart to recite the count-by-5 numbers up to 100.
Then, the real excitement began. We created these charts for the students to take home and recite the numbers over and over again. The charts needed to be exciting to my kindergarteners, but they also needed to hold up for many uses.
So I decided to laminate the charts.
More importantly, I decided to let every child help me laminate their own chart. I plugged in my Scotch laminator and handed each child a plastic laminating sheet.
Oh my word. You would have thought I had given each student $100. They were beyond excited that their chart would be laminated just like my teacher chart. A few of them even decided to color the edges of their chart so it would be even more like mine.
I wasn’t going to take any chances with students getting burned by the laminator (even though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an actual hazard) so I loaded their charts into the machine and carefully monitored the machine while it was in use. My kindergarteners watched in anticipation while each chart was slowly processed by the machine. Once the cycle was finally complete, I let each child remove their freshly laminated skip counting chart from the machine.
They excited talked about how “hot” their plastic charts were and I kept correcting them by saying, “No, it’s warm!” I had nightmares of my students telling their parents that Mrs. Gavin let them touch things that were so hot at school that day. Thankfully, there were no complaints.
I sent the charts home in each child’s folder with a sticky note attached encouraging parents have their child practice counting by 5s using the chart.
The next day, I asked volunteers to skip count by 5s for me. Almost every single child in the class could do it! I had one friend that was so close, she just needed a tiny bit more practice because she skipped 2 numbers in the sequence.
And that is the secret to developing kindergarten skip counting experts overnight.
Let your students laminate the charts! Who knew?
Our next challenge? Counting by 2s!
If you’re looking to unleash your student’s enthusiasm for skip counting, be sure to check out my Rainbow Skip Counting set! The differentiated resource provides three levels of support for students as they skip count by 10s, 5s and 2s.
Here’s a peek at what’s inside:
Want to know more about my Rainbow Skip Counting set? Check it out in the Kinder Craze store and get ready to unlock your students’ skip counting potential!
I’m a former kindergarten teacher turned work-from-home mom. I still love sharing ideas and resources to make teaching easier, so you can focus on what really matters in the classroom. When I’m not working on the blog, you’ll find me chasing kids around the house with a cold cup of coffee in my hand (some things never change even once you’re out of the classroom!)
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21 Responses
Is the tally chart also available in your store?
Hi Lynne,
I just added a link to download the tally chart for free to this post. Stop back and you can get the chart 🙂
Cool….is the tally chart also available?
It is now! I just added a link to download the chart for free to the blog post. Enjoy!
Thank You!
Love the tally mark chart. Does that come in your packet as well? Would love to get a copy of that!
Hi Tracey! I just added a link to download the tally mark for free to the blog post. Come on back and grab it!
Where can I find your Tally Chart?
Hi Marcia! I just added a link to download the chart in the blog post. Stop back at the post to grab the chart 🙂
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Thanks for the tally chart! I have the packet in my wish list. My kids LOVE skip counting!
I like the tally and skip counting charts! I can see that being really useful for my kids. I’ll have to look into it more. Thanks for posting these products!
Hey! Just like everyone else, I’m trying to download the tally chart to use in intervention with my kiddos, but it took me to a free emergent reader and sent me the same link in an email. Any chance I could get a different link? Thanks so much- I adore all of your stuff!
Hi Kiersten, Hmmm… this is actually the first time I am hearing of that particular issue. Maybe try downloading the tally chart one more time from the blog post. If you are still getting the wrong download, please send an email at kindercraze@gmail.com
I teach skip counting using songs starting at age 4. We learn songs for skip counting from 2s though 15s. This worked amazingly well for my 10 and 12 year old when they were younger. Now I’m working with my 4 year old. For ex. skip counting 3s is to the tune of Jingle Bells, 5s is Row, Row, Row Your Boat. When it was time for my older kids to learn multiplication, it took about 5 minutes to explain it. Now I can take a deck of flash cards from the 1s through the 15s and they can spit off multiplication facts with machine gun speed.
Hi! Love your site! Toy Theater has a simple little game for practicing skip counting by fives that you might be interested in (and it’s Free 🙂 ). http://www.toytheater.com/skip-count.php
This is my first year homeschooling and I am trying to teach my son skip counting. I love your chart, but have a question. Why the rainbow colors?
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