Five Minute Math: Get Active and Skip Count (an easy family math activity)

Skip-counting is a great skill to practice- not only is it a building block towards multiplication mastery, but it also helps improve a child’s number sense! In Montessori, we first introduce skip counting with our bead chains, but you can do it any time and any where!

In this week’s five minute math, we encourage you to get active and skip count!

Here’s how:

• Pick an activity your child enjoys- it can be bouncing a ball, skipping, swinging, etc.

• First, practice counting by ones. Every time your child does the activity, count.

• Next, try counting by twos (2…4…6…8…), saying one number for each time your child does the activity. For example- [skip] “2” [skip] “4” [skip] “6” [skip]… etc.

• Based on your child’s interest, you can try counting by other numbers (3s, 4s, 5s, 6s…)

If your child is pretty comfortable skip counting, another fun way to do this activity is to count how many times your child does the action, but only saying the numbers of the skip-counting chain out loud. Here’s what I mean:

Say you are skip counting by 4s and your child is bouncing a ball. Your child would bounce the ball four times. You would not count the first three bounces, but on the forth bounce you would say “four”. It may look a little something like this:

[bounce], [bounce], [bounce], [bounce] “four”

[bounce], [bounce], [bounce], [bounce] “eight”

[bounce], [bounce], [bounce], [bounce] “twelve”

I love this version of the activity for older children because it really reinforces the increase in quantity- when counting by 2s, you say a number every two bounces. But when you count by 8s, you have to bounce eight times before you say a number.

If you tried this activity, I’d love to know how it went. Leave a comment below, and please follow us on Facebook or Instagram for more great math tips and updates!