Ep 14: 8+ Rote Counting Ideas: Number Sense Routines Series

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Today's number sense routine isn't necessarily a routine but some ideas to

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help your kids with a standard that I find particularly it's like pulling teeth.

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Counting to 100 is like pulling teeth sometimes because it takes so long and

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it can get really repetitive and not in a good way. So I'm giving you some ideas

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of how you can make this skill, this routine that your kids need to be

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able to do counting to 100, a little more interesting and give it a little more

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a little more something extra so that your kids can count to 100 and

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actually understand what that means.

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Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Makes Sense, a podcast for elementary

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teachers specifically early elementary teachers looking to really make an

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impact in the number sense of their students. What do you think of when I

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say the number five? Do you think of the numeral five? Do you think of five fingers?

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Do you think of five dots? Do you think of counting to five? There's lots of

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different things that you might think of when you think of five and as adults

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who have been counting for decades these things are not necessarily things that

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we think about but when you're talking about students who have not been

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counting and are new to counting who are literally only five years old have only

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been on this earth for five years talking for three maybe four of them.

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Counting can be a really complex mechanism. They have to think of the

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numeral so they have to understand that when they see this squiggle, the

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symbolic squiggle, it means five objects. They have to actually know that what it's

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called five and they have to know how many five is so they need these three

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things in order to really develop an understanding of a number and it really

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needs to come together simultaneously to develop number sense. So something that

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can often limit a student's ability to count high is that they just don't have

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a understanding of what it is that they're doing or why that's important.

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Kids need a lot of opportunities to practice the number sequence. One to one

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correspondence is just the act of like understanding that if you move one thing

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it has a name but learning those names can be really really tricky. So an example

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is if you're here kids you know singing the alphabet song before they

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understand that each of those words is representative of a letter they'll say

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like element OP thinking that all of that together is one thing and it's not

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those are all different letters the same thing happens with numbers they might

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just be repeating them not understand that the order that they're saying them

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matters at all and rote counting is something that is a challenge for me

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specifically I know that it was a challenge because they have to be able

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to count to 100 but a lot of times have no concept or understanding of how many

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a hundred is and why they would ever need to do that. So it's something that I

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practice every day but it can be really dry and a lot of times if you're

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practicing just the sequence the counting sequence to 100 the students who

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really having trouble with it are not participating with you. So there are some

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things I've done in my classroom to really support all of my kids learning

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to count to 100 and develop number sense and I'm gonna give you some ideas.

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The first one is number songs. Singing is a great way to help kids remember

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things like you ask them to sing a song for you they know all of the words so

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including a lot of number songs and what you're doing is very very helpful for

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helping kids develop the counting sequence or the number sequence. Just

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giving a lot of opportunities like counting in calendar math is a great

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way to have the kids practice there like a range from 1 to 30 and start to get

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the pattern of how numbers work or how the number sequence works. Another thing

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I've done before is movement counting so as we count down so like I'd be like

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it's the first day of school today is the second day of school then it's the

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third day of school so we add a number each day so in each decade I would give

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kids a different movement that they're doing so for example if we're counting

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and it is the 30th day of school from 1 to 10 we clap so it'd be like 1 2 3 4 5

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and each each number gets a clap and that will be my first decade from 1 to

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10 and then from 11 to 20 we do a different movement maybe we're doing

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jumping jacks or maybe we are patting our shoulders or touching our head or

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something like that so then from 11 to 20 you'd be counting you'd be patting your

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head and counting like 11 12 patting your head that way to start to develop

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one-to-one correspondence and the number sequence at the same time giving it

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meaning making it tactile and then for the next one from like 20 to 30 I might

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give them a different one like they might be playing air guitar or they might be

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you know stomping their feet or marching in place or something like that for the

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next decade so each decade gets its own movement and as the kids start to

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realize that each decade gets a next movement I bring them in on it it's like

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okay what movement do you think we should do for our next group of 10 and

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some of the things they come up with are hilarious some of the things you're

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like oh gosh that's not happening like if they want to do like spins on the floor

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I was like no spins on the floor is not gonna happen for me and a lot of times

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I'll frame it in the way of saying oh you know like I'm old I can't do that you're

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gonna make me dizzy and then I'm not gonna be able to teach anymore and they

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think they're gonna kick out of that but keeping it light and playful so if you

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for sure know that a certain movement is not going to work they they're like oh

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well it's because of this not because my idea was bad because they're not

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necessarily bad ideas it's just how can we keep everybody safe in this space and

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after you get some ideas I let the kids vote sometimes I choose be like oh of

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all of these ideas this one is the one I like but usually I just have them vote

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on the one that they enjoy and I'll have them practice each one so if we have

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three different ideas we'll practice the first idea counting from one to ten the

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second idea so you're sneaking in some extra counting to ten but they're

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getting their movement they're getting some wiggles out and that can help them

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with counting to 100 as well. Another game that you can do is a counting around

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game I would caution though that if your students are not super confident with

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the number sequence it can get a little bit of like a pressure situation if

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someone has to say the next number and they don't know what that number is that

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can be a little bit hard for the kids or kind of give it a like an air of like oh

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if you don't know just say oh I need some help and then another student can

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help them if they're not sure what number comes next so they can try counting

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around the circle so one person starts one the next person to and then try and

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get all the way around the circle you can also play a game like pop where they

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would count just a smaller sequence so it might be one two three four five and

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then the person who's five needs to pop so they'd be one two three four pop and

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then it would start over for the next person so be like one two three four

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pop and then the next person starts again from one one two three four pop and

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then keep going that way to see if you can get around the circle and that's

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great for smaller numbers or smaller sequences so my example was one two

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three four five but if we're having a tricky part of your sequence like the

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teen numbers 11 12 13 14 15 or crossing a decade so you might do 17 18 19 20 21

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like that kind of thing is another way that you could use counting around the

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circle or pop in a way that would help kids just practice that tiny little

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sequence that's giving them trouble when they're hearing it a lot in a different

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way and just like you counted forwards you can do backwards too so you could do

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like 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 pop and then keep going that way the speaking of

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counting backwards the one that I really like the best and my kids really like the

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best was blast off counting like a rocket so what I would do is I would put my

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like my hands above my head kind of like a little rocket and we start like in a

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squatting position and then we start from 10 to be 10 9 8 and after each number

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you get a little bit higher a little bit higher like you're in a rocket blasting

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off and then when you get to 0 you actually blast off and get your arms up

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like you really blasted off the kids really enjoyed that one as well the

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next one that I'm going to go more in depth with next week is coral counting

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and again that's great for shorter number sequences that you're counting

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together and everybody is hearing and that routine comes from the coral

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counting and counting collections book which is a great resource to have check

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out see if you have it in your professional library at your school or

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you can get your hands on it because it really is a great book for coral

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counting and counting collections which is a hands-on way for kids to really

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develop an understanding of how many of quantities numbers are so if you have the

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opportunity to thumb through that book it's a great one as you get into like

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first grade second grade the kids have to start skip counting skip counting by

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tens is I I feel like an easier one that will help your kids get to 100 because

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if they can skip count by tens they can cross the decades which trips up the

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kids and the strategy I use for that one was just making up a song for counting

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by tens and that's the only one that I did we did it every single day and that

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really really helped a lot of my kids get over the hump of not being able to

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cross over a decade so like getting stuck on 29 39 49 they would sing the song in

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their head and remember which one came next and then they could keep going so

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that one I'm not well alright don't judge me I'm not a singer but also I

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taught Spanish immersion so it was in Spanish so 10 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

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100 because 60 and 70 60 and 70 in Spanish it tripped them up every time

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they would either skip one or just skip both and go from 50 to 80 it's like well

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that's not gonna work we're gonna have to do 60 and 70 so that was I just sang

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that song with them every day you could do it in English as well and that really

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helped a lot of kids who understood the sequence 21 22 23 31 32 33 they just

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couldn't remember what the name of the decade was and once they remembered it

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they could keep going that really helped them out speaking of skip counting skip

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counting by tens like I said is the one for kindergarten that we really focus on

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at least at my school is the one that we really focused on but as they get into

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first grade second grade they're gonna have to practice skip counting by fives

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skip counting by twos and I think the concept of skip counting for the kids is

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also kind of abstract like why would I need to skip numbers especially when

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they're little you do not want them to skip numbers because if they skipped a

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number they have the wrong quantity so skip counting is one that can also be

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kind of abstract so something that I'd like to do with skip counting if I'm

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focusing on skip counting by fives or skips counting by twos is bring it into

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a problem-solving type arena and make it make sense make it more tangible why

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you would want to skip count instead of counting by one as grown-ups we know

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skip counting can make you more efficient in your counting but that's more of a

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higher level skill than base level one-to-one correspondence so one way I

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like to bring that in is I like to show them images of dice like a lot of dice

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together and they have to figure out how many pips or how many your dots are on

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their dice without counting by ones so they're looking at their image and then

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they start to kind of group them together and maybe they make they group

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them together in ways that make more sense so since counting by tens is the

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first one that they learn making tens might be something that makes more

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sense to them so they might know two fives make a ten so if I have an image

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of 20 dice that are all showing the five they might start grouping them by ten

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so that may be like okay these two are ten so instead of doing five ten 15 20

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they make do 10 20 30 and it just gives kids an opportunity to use what they

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know to make sense of this newer task that they're learning in a tangible way

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and I will have some examples of that that you can see in the show notes along

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with the blog post about this video all of that good stuff will be in the show

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notes so you can take a closer look at some of the things that I'm talking

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about and some of the images that I might use of my kids so that was a lot of

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different ways to help your kids get that number sequence which can I feel like

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be the most taxing time-consuming part of teaching math just because for me like

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I said I taught Spanish immersion so I would teach the same lesson twice one

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to my first class one to my second class and counting to a hundred every day

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twice was a nightmare I was like I don't want to do this anymore and I feel like

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sometimes the kids are like I don't want to do this anymore either so these are

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just some ways to spice it up give it a little something extra and help your

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kids be able to count to a hundred and like I said I would say of all of those

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things the counting by tens song so starting off the year practicing the

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movement counting until we got to a hundred and then after we got to the

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hundred day of school which is usually in February adding in the counting by

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tens song really help them be able to make it all the way to a hundred by the

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end of the year so like I said I hope you found some ideas helpful I hope you

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try one out in your classroom and if you do please let me know I would love to

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know what your kids are really enjoying in your classroom until then I will see

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you next time well you'll hear me next time you're gonna hear me next time