Year 1 News by Melinda White

Counting

We’ve just finished our counting patterns number unit and we’ve really enjoyed problem solving in this unit of work! To be a mathematician, we have to count efficiently and explain our thinking.

Skip counting may seem like a memory concept, something you just recite. But in reality, we use skip counting all the time in daily life.

Counting objects… if there’s a large pile of something, we won’t count in ones - it would take too long!

Counting people… teachers use counting in twos everyday as they count their students in line up!

Estimating… if you want to have a sense of an even bigger number than you can count, you might quickly skip count a small section of, say, a crowd. Then use your estimation skills to do the rest.

Counting in 2s, 5s and 10s is what we’ve been working on. Have some fun with your Year 1, exploring what they know about these counting patterns.