counting | Maths Blog

Counting in halves and quarters

Here is a worksheet that is difficult to find anywhere else, but covers an important aspect of counting ie counting in halves and quarters. The sheet looks at counting forwards and backwards and certainly the counting back in quarters requires concentration.

The final question asks for a number line from 0 to 4 to be drawn and then all the whole numbers, halves, quarters and intermediate eighths to be included. Completing this successfully will show a good understanding of quarters and eighths ie that 1/2 is the same as 4/8 etc.

This can be found in our year 3, Counting and Number category

Count forward and backward in halves and quarters

Year 4 Counting and Understanding Number

Our year 4 Counting and Understanding Number section is developing well with over 30 separate worksheets. In year 4 children are expected to develop their recognition of number sequences, and count on and back in steps of equal size.

Four digit numbers are introduced and children are expected to be able to partition, round and order them – there are four pages at present on the site on partitioning into ThHTU. One of the harder concepts for children to understand is negative numbers and it is important to put them within a context or show them on a number line.

If we are thinking of harder concepts, then decimals and fractions won’t be far away. We have some excellent pages on both these topics, including ordering decimals and equivalent fractions.

Why not visit the Year 4 Counting and Understanding Number section of the site?

Year 3 maths worksheet: finding half way (2)

I’ve had a number of requests for another page to go with the ‘Finding half way’ sheet published earlier. This is suitable for Year 3 children. It is interesting to see how they tackle this without any help. Some will find techniques using the number line and others will find it very difficult.

Certainly use the number line to work out half way, but children also need to be shown that by adding the two numbers and then halving the answer will also give them the correct answer.

At this stage we are keeping to smaller multiples of 10 but this method applies to finding halfway between any pair of numbers.

Half way between_(2)

Year 3 maths worksheet: half way

On the face of it this looks quite a simple task, but many children (and adults) find it very tricky to work out what half way between two numbers is. Often there is a lot of ‘trial and improvement’ going on in people’s heads as they guess their way towards finding half way.

Two methods make the task fairly straightforward.

For method one a number line is very useful to start with. Put a finger of the left hand on the first (lower) number shown on the number line and a finger of the right hand on the second number. Then move the left hand finger one place to the right and the right hand finger one place to the left. Repeat this until the two fingers meet – that is your half way number.

The second way of finding half way involves two steps:

step 1: add the two numbers.

step 2: halve the answer.

This is the better method as it works for all numbers, not just those shown on the number line.

This page can be found in our Year 3, Counting and Number section

Half way between_(1)

Year 1 Counting and Number

Children need as much practice as possible with counting up to 10 and you can not have too many resources to help with this. Of course, counting in the real world is the best place, whether it is in the kitchen counting spoons, or on the beach counting shells. However, it is also useful to have resources which can be printed or looked at on a compter. Why not use the free Mathblog resources to help?

Watch your child when they are counting objects and see if they are saying one number name for each object and that the last number they say is the number in the set. Look also for children who move the object they are counting, or mark it so that it is not counted twice. Don’t always ask children to count the whole set – just ask them to count 5 of them and see if they know when to stop.

We have a growing number of counting worksheets which help with these skills.

Go to the year 1 Counting and Number worksheets

Counting games for Early Years

Counting is a major part of maths in Reception and Year 1. Children should be able to say and use number names up to 10. A good example of this would be to join in nursery rhymes or songs such as

“One, two three, four, five. Once I caught a fish alive.”

Children should also be counting up in ones, up to 10 objects. This would be in a practical sense of counting a number of objects that they can touch (pieces of a jigsaw, coins, hats etc). Later they can count things they can see, but not touch (panes in a window, cows in a field etc ).They can then begin to count down from a small number e.g. 5,4,3,2,1,0.

We have a great set of fun maths games on counting for Reception/Early Years and one of my particular favourites is the Counting Goats game. This is really good practice at counting up to 5. Young children can not get too much practice with this both in the home and on the computer. They may well use their fingers to help and count out loud, but after a time they will begin to count in their heads. Adults can often glimpse at a picture to see how many there are, almost without counting – don’t expect this of 5 a year old! Don’t forget to click on the banjo playing goat at the end for a happy tune!

We have a great set of counting games, so why not have a go today?

Go to our Counting games

Resource of the Week: Year 2 maths worksheet

This is the second page which looks in detail at a 1-100 number square and is excellent practice at understanding place value as well as counting.

A small section of the whole number square, just 4 by 3 is taken and most of the numbers removed. The skill is in replacing the missing numbers.

This can be done in a variety of ways. Probably the easiest way is to work across as each number is one more than the number to the left. One of the more interesting ways is to work down as each number is 10 more than the number above.

Missing numbers on a number square (pg 2)

Many more KS1 resources can be found at urbrainy.com

Year 3 worksheet: counting in tens

These are a useful couple of pages for children entering Year 3 next term. Counting on and back will still be important in year 3, using up to three digit numbers. Grouping into tens or fives and using tally charts are both effective ways of counting larger numbers.

Children seldom get a chance to count a larger number of objects – somewhere between 30 and 60. By seeing and counting this many they become more able to estimate larger numbers and be able to give rough approximations rather than wild guesses.

Try similar exercises with heaps of coins, counters etc, dividing them up into fives or tens. A really good idea is to collect change (pennies etc) and guess how much of any one coin there is.

Counting by grouping into tens

Free maths worksheet: Counting in steps of 25 and 50

By year 4 children should be confident enough to count on in steps of 50 or 25. This can be useful when using money or length. Here we have a straightforward free maths worksheet that looks at counting in these steps. Some of the counting on in fifties start with multiples of 50 but the later questions don’t, but children should quickly see the patterns involved.

Counting in steps of 50 or 25_(1)

Counting back in tens: Year 3 revision

In year 3 many children still find it tricky to count on and back and there is a danger that they are moved on to harder maths before they have mastered this basic skill. This is a page which can be used as a check to make sure that they are confident with counting back in tens from any 2 or 3-digit number.

Revise counting back in tens