Counting Frame

When my daughter was around 18 months old I introduced this ten-frame activity. It was the very first step in our learning to count journey.

 

Counting frames help children begin to establish 1:1 correspondence and eventually learn to count to 10.

 

By having the child manipulate the counters into the spots on the frame, the child begins to make the connection from the concrete to the abstract – the understanding that one (a noun, an abstract concept) corresponds to one manipulative (a concrete material they can hold in their hand).

 

Activities like this one using a ten frame help them move beyond the memorization of numbers and into a deeper understanding of the mathematical concept.