Counting to 100 and beyond
Once a child can count to twenty, how do the counting words keep going all the way to one hundred?
Where you are 23 in Counting and cardinality
When you reach for it
Past twenty, the counting words follow one pattern: a tens word (twenty, thirty, forty) followed by the ones words one to nine, and after nine the tens word changes. A child who already says the words to twenty needs two new things: the eight tens words up to ninety, and the moment each one takes over (twenty-nine, thirty). These four days build both, then lay the words out on the hundred chart, then let the child start counting from any number instead of always from one.
Keep each session short and spoken. The goal is the words in order; counting a pile of a hundred things is not needed.
Day 1: Past twenty, the ones start again
You need: a strip of paper with boxes numbered 20 to 40, taped to the floor or the table.
Walk a toy figure along the strip, one box per word, while the child says the words. At twenty-one, stop and ask, “What do you hear after twenty?” The child hears one, then two, three: the same words as before ten, now riding on twenty. Keep going. At twenty-nine, stop again and ask, “The ones are all used up. What comes next?” The answer is a new word, thirty, and then the ones start over: thirty-one, thirty-two.
Ask, “Where does the new word start?” Point to the shaded 30.
Practice.
- What comes after twenty-three? Answer: twenty-four.
- What comes after twenty-nine? Answer: thirty.
- Count from 31 to 36. Answer: thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six.
- What comes after thirty-four? Answer: thirty-five.
Day 2: The tens words
You need: a beanbag or soft ball to pass back and forth.
Say the tens words together, slowly: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety. Listen for the odd ones. It is twenty, not “twoty”; thirty, not “threety”; fifty, not “fivety”. The rest sound like their small number with “-ty”: sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety. Forty is four with the “u” dropped.
Now play pass the beanbag. Whoever holds it says the next word and tosses it back. Start at a number that ends in nine, such as 39, so the very first catch is a change of tens word. After ninety-nine comes a brand-new word, one hundred, which ends the game.
| the last one in a group | the next word |
|---|---|
| thirty-nine | forty |
| forty-nine | fifty |
| ninety-nine | one hundred |
Practice.
- What comes after thirty-nine? Answer: forty.
- What comes after forty-nine? Answer: fifty.
- What comes after ninety-nine? Answer: one hundred.
- Count from 95 to 100. Answer: ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.
- Which is a real word, “fivety” or fifty? Answer: fifty.
Day 3: The hundred chart
You need: a printed hundred chart and a few pennies or sticky notes.
Read the chart with the child, one row at a time, pointing to each box as you say its word. Each row reads left to right, and the next number is always at the start of the row below: after 30 at the end of one row, 31 starts the next. Notice that the last box of each row is where the new tens word appears (30, 40, 50), and the boxes in the row below carry that word, all except the last box, which brings the next tens word.
Then cover a few boxes with pennies and ask, “What number is hiding here? How do you know?” A good answer reads along the row: “it comes after 45, so it is 46.”
Practice. Use the chart piece above.
- What number is under box A? Answer: 30, the word after twenty-nine.
- What number is under box B? Answer: 38, between 37 and 39.
- What number is under box C? Answer: 47, the number just before 48.
- What number is under box D? Answer: 50, the word after forty-nine.
- On the full chart, what number starts the row after 40? Answer: 41.
Day 4: Starting from any number
You need: numeral cards from 20 to 99 in a bag.
Pull a card, read it together, and have the child count on from that number until you say stop, at one hundred at the latest. The child does not go back to one: the number on the card is the first word said. Then make a game of a target: pull two cards, and count from the smaller up to the larger. If the child stalls at a number ending in nine, ask, “What tens word comes next?” which is Day 2 again. A walk on the hundred chart helps here too: find the start box, then read along the rows.
Practice.
- Start at 46 and count to 52. Answer: forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two.
- Start at 73 and count to 77. Answer: seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven.
- “I say forty-seven. You say the next three words.” Answer: forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty.
- Start at 17 and count to 23. Answer: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.
Exercises
- What number belongs in box A, box B and box C of the chart piece?
- Start at 84 and stop at 91. Say every word along the way.
Answers
- A is 60, because it comes right after 59 and starts the new tens word sixty. B is 69, because it sits between 68 and 70. C is 78, because it comes right before 79. A child who has it reads along each row rather than guessing.
- eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one. The step to watch is eighty-nine to ninety, where the tens word changes.
Where this goes next
Saying only the tens words in order, ten, twenty, thirty, is counting by tens. Starting from a number and going on becomes counting on and counting back, a first way to add. The count keeps going past one hundred in counting to 120 and later to one thousand, and why each row of the hundred chart holds ten is the idea of Tens and ones. Laying the numbers in a row, evenly spaced, leads to the The number line.