Skip counting
Why count things one at a time when they come in pairs, fives or tens?
Where you are 3 inside
What this area is about
Skip counting says only the number at the end of each equal group: “two, four, six” for pairs, “ten, twenty, thirty” for tens. The count is shorter, so there is less room for a slip. It works only when every group really holds the same amount, and the numbers it lands on follow a pattern a child can learn to predict.
How these fit together
By tens. Counting by tens to one hundred counts groups of ten up to 100, one word for each full group.
Smaller jumps. Counting by twos, fives, threes and fours counts pairs, rows of five and other small groups, and asks which numbers such a count will land on.
By hundreds. Counting by hundreds counts boxes of 100, and shows why only one digit changes at each step.
A path through it
Count by tens first, then by hundreds. Counting by twos and fives can come before hundreds or after.
Skip counting is the first step toward multiplication, and it leads on to facts for two, five and ten and listing multiples.