Teaching number sense to kindergartners can be fun. Books, manipulatives, and games can all make learning about numbers much more interesting. Hopefully the following information will provide useful resources to teachers and parents when they teach counting forwards, counting backwards from 10, writing numerals and recognizing numbers. (VA SOL K.2, K.4)
Great books for teaching number sense:
One Gorilla Author/Illustrator: Atsuko Morozumi
A lovely counting book with beautiful illustrations. Children will enjoy finding and counting all the animals scattered on each page. This is a good book to teach one-to-one correspondence.
Ten Black Dots Author/Illustrator: Donald Crews
This is a very creative counting book that can open the door to many math activities in the classroom. The author starts the book with 1 dot as a sun and ends with 10 dots as balloons stuck in a tree.
Ten Sly Piranhas Author: William Wise Illustrator: Victoria Chess
This is a great read-aloud book for a kindergarten classroom. Children will love to learn to count backwards from 10 to 0 while listening to the rhyming story of a very hungry fish.
Ten, Nine, Eight Author/Illustrator: Molly Bang
This is story about a dad getting his daughter ready for bed. This book is very easy to follow and teaches children how to count down from 10 to 1.
1 Hunter Author/Illustrator: Pat Hutchins
This book is about a hunter looking for animals. The children will love to count the animals and look for the ‘hidden’ animals, anticipating the next page. This is a wonderful book to introduce the numbers 1-10.
5 Great websites with math games for kindergarteners
- 123 Order has students pick the next number in a sequence of 3 numbers.
- Count Chickens is another fun game in which kids count animals and then choose the correct number out of 3 choices.
2. Chevron cars has kid-friendly connect the dots, all in the shape of cars.
3. http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/games.htm
- Game 1: Sheep Counting- The player has to move the sheep from left to right until there are the same number of sheep in each paddock.
- Game 3: Counting- The player has to count the objects on the screen, then enter the number in either numerical and/or in word format.
- Game 6:Representing Numbers- The player has to move a crayon with a word number to the corresponding digit of a Flying Girl.
- Game 11:Numbers- The player has to move a frog across a pond using the next highest number.
4. Fishin’ Mission is a really cute game that kids will love. They are to catch a specific number of fish and put them in the fisherman’s net.
5. Big Sea Count Counting Game will be a favorite with kindergartners. The students will help Cora and Gavin count things in the sea.
4 Additional resources to support number sense instruction
- Kidscount1234 is an amazing website with counting games and activities that children will love.
- Kidzone has numerous worksheets that can be useful to reinforce concepts.
- Calicocookie details how math journals can be used to teach math in Kindergarten classrooms.
- Hubbards Cupboard has many resources to teach number sense. I especially like the math tubs and the counting bags.