Counting in 10s

Counting to 10

Can you count on from 1 to 9?

1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9

Can you count back from 9 to 1?

9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2…1

What do you notice about these numbers?

The numbers 1 to 9 are all single digit numbers.

The number 10 comes after 9.

The number 10 is not like the numbers 1 to 9. It is a two-digit number.

Quiz: Counting in 10s

Take this quiz to see how much you know about this topic already, then work through the guide and see if you can beat your score.

Representing 10

Here are some different ways of showing 10.

There are 10 fingers on these hands, 10 counters in the ten frame, 10 beads on the string, 10 dots on the domino and 10 pencils in the pack.

Can you think of some other things that come in 10s?

Counting in 10s using repeated addition

Repeated addition is when you are counting in 10s by adding 10 each time.

For example, each pencil pot contains 10 pencils.

When you add the 10s together you get the answer 40.

There are 40 pencils.

You get exactly the same answer if you count on in 10s.

Counting on in 10s is quicker than adding lots of groups of 10 together.

Let's count in 10s.

Counting in 10s using a number line

You can count in 10s using a number line.

This number line starts at 0 and ends at 90.

The numbers go up in units of 10.

Let's use this number line to count in 10s to work out how many pencils there are.

Remember the last number you count is the number of objects altogether.

There are 9 jumps of 10.

There are 90 pencils altogether.

Counting in 10s using arrow cards

Now let's use arrow cards to count in 10s.

Two-digit numbers are made from tens and ones.

You can place the arrow cards on top of each other to make each number.

What do you notice?

The tens digit gets bigger by 1 each time, but the ones digit doesn’t change.