If you have taught (or parented) young learners, you’ve probably heard the term “number sense.” But you might be confused by what the term means and about choosing number sense activities for the children you are working with.
Keep reading to learn the answers to your questions about number sense, particularly when it relates to kindergarten and first grade learners.
What is meant by number sense?
Number sense is the ability to understand and connect numbers. Strong number sense allows a person to work flexibly and fluently with numbers.
So…
Can number sense be taught?
Number sense can be taught, but not quite in the way that a math algorithm (such as finding the area of a triangle) can be taught.
Number sense is a broader understanding about how numbers work. It is developed through experiences with numbers.
Early number sense skills are related to the following areas:
- counting (including forward, backward, skip counting, etc.)
- sequencing numbers
- multiple representations of numbers (tally marks, ten frames, number words, etc.)
- understanding what the number means (that 7 actually means seven items)
- recognizing number patterns (ex: adding ten to a two-digit number means changing the first number)
- understanding place value (ex: that the 1 in 164 represents 100, and the 1 in 17 represents 10)
- comparing numbers (more/less, greater than/less than)
- estimating
How can I teach number sense?
Because number sense involves a deep understanding of the number system, it’s not something you can teach for a few days and you’re done.
Instead, you will want to incorporate number sense activities into your daily routines all year long. Below are some fun activities that can be used repeatedly in your classroom (or with your child.)
Counting
Add counting throughout your school day. This can be done as a morning meeting activity, at the beginning of your math lesson, while waiting for students to join you on the floor, or on the rare day where you are actually early for lunch.
Once kids can count by ones into the hundreds, work on skip counting (most commonly by 2s, 5s, and 10s.)
Then work on counting backward (starting from ten, but work your way up to counting back from higher numbers. It’s OK to have kids count back from 99, then stop them at 87, so you aren’t counting all day!)
Provide visual supports for the counting tasks, as needed. You might find that a color-coded number grid helps students practice skip counting (or counting backwards.)
Want to make it fun? Find some counting songs to add to your morning routine. (Personally, I love Jack Hartmann, but there are many options out there.)
Another fun counting activity is Sparkle. To play, identify a target number (ex: 100). Students stand in a circle and count (ex: count by 5s), with one child saying each number.
When a student says the target number (100), the next child says “sparkle” and the child after that sits down. Continue until only one child remains standing.
To keep the game moving (and increase participation opportunities for students), you may want to play in small groups, once students understand how to play.
Fill the Ten Frame
With ten frames the number (which is a symbol) is represented by a quantity. For instance, the number 7 is represented with seven dots within the ten frame.
You can do many things with ten frames to develop number sense.
First, provide blank ten frames and number cards. Have students fill the boxes in the ten frames with manipulatives to represent that number. This gives them experience building the number quantity.
Ten Frame Flash Cards
You can also print out ten frame flash cards. Show them briefly to the students, encouraging them to rapidly identify the quantity shown. (This is called subitizing.)
When using ten frame flash cards, it’s best to start with the cards for 5-6 dots. These quantities are easiest for students to identify with one quick glance.
Larger numbers require additional thinking. For instance, with 8, students might quickly recognize the top row as five, then count up 3 more to get to 8. Or they may recognize that it’s like 10 with two less, so they will count back two. This is called conceptual subitizing. Learn more here.
Ten More/Ten Less
Understanding ten more or less is foundational to understanding our base-ten place value system.
To help students develop this understanding, first have them start at a given number on a number grid or number line. Then challenge them to count up 10 more.
Simply counting up ten hops may take a bit of practice, as students are sometimes need practice before they are consistently accurate.
Once they understand how to count hops on the number line or grid, help them to notice things about their starting number and ending number (ex: 36 and 46). They will likely notice that both numbers contain a 6 (the number in the ones place).
Help them to see that the 3 and 4 (the numbers in the tens place) are consecutive numbers when counting.
Once students have started to develop this understanding, it’s helpful to continue practicing with a number grid. Students will start to realize that they can simply take one “hop” down, instead of counting ahrad ten each time.
When students understand ten more, introduce ten less the same way. Then you can start to mix more/less.
Eventually, they will be able to identify (and write) the more/less number without using the number grid.
Compare Numbers and Quantities
Find as many ways in day to day life to compare numbers and quantities. For instance:
- Have we had more rainy days or sunny days? (during calendar)
- Do more kids have school lunch or home lunch?
- Are more kids wearing pants or shorts?
- We have 16 kids who wanted to play a game and 12 who wanted to color. Which group is more/less?
As often as you can, incorporate the following math concepts into these conversations:
- more
- less
- larger
- smaller
- greater than
- less than
One easy and fun way to incorporate number comparisons into math routines is by playing War. In this game, students turn over two cards and compare numbers. The child with the larger number gets both cards.
You can play this with a regular deck of playing cards (after removing the face cards.)
However, there are many variations of math war games that you can use: larger numbers, ten frames, subitizing representations and more.
No time to make cards for a war game? Click here to grab these pre-made cards for subitizing war.
Note: when your students are playing War games, interact with them to encourage them to use the mathematical terms to compare numbers (listed above.) They will need support to develop this vocabulary.
Dice Games
Quickly identifying the number represented by the dots on the dice helps support number sense (specifically, subitizing.)
Therefore, playing games with dice can help students develop number sense skills.
The simplest dice games involve rolling a die and moving spaces along a trail. You can purchase games like this or make your own by printing blank trail games.
Commercial dice games include: Farkle, Yahtzee, Tenzi and Quixx. (Most of these are easier to play at home than at school, because students need to learn the multi-step directions.)
Roll and Graph
It’s also fun to roll and graph. Write the numerals 1-6 on the bottom of some graph paper. Have children roll a die and color (or X) a square above the numeral every time they roll that number. They race to see which number “wins.”
Bingo
The standard Bingo game is perfect for practicing number identification. Let students take turn calling the numbers, so they can practice naming them, not just locating numbers.
You can also play variations of Bingo games to practice specific number sense skills. For instance, this Subitizing Bingo game helps students recognize number representations from 1-20.
Make Number Sense Activities Fun
Number sense is so important to future math development (including mental math, place value, multi-digit addition/subtraction, rounding and more.) It’s important for number sense to be taught to even the youngest learners.
Just because number sense skills are critical to understanding math doesn’t mean they need to be boring. As noted above, there are many engaging number sense activities that can help students develop number sense skills.
Use the number sense activities above throughout your day, helping to foster a strong foundation in number sense.
Looking for more number sense games in this blog post.
