Counting is more than saying numbers
Children can often recite numbers long before they can count objects. Counting a scattered group asks them to match one number to one picture, keep track of what they have counted, and know that the last number says how many. These sheets practise all three.
How to use them
Start with counts to 5 and circling the number, then counts to 10, then writing. Counts to 20 suit Senior Infants and 1st Class, when children start to count larger groups.
Irish curriculum links
- InfantsStage 1 Numeration and counting: children learn that the point of counting is to find how many, and that the last number said gives the total.
- PrinciplesThe toolkit lists five counting principles, including one-to-one counting and the idea that order doesn’t matter. Scattered pictures put both to work.
- ContinuumEarly steps include reciting to at least 10, then counting objects and counting forwards and backwards within 20.
Junior Infants in Ireland spend a long time counting real things before writing numbers: setting out cups at the home corner, counting jigsaw pieces at tidy-up time. The NCCA suggests this kind of everyday counting for home too, so a sheet works best as a short follow-up to hands-on work.
The circle-the-number option suits the first term, when children can often recognise a numeral before they can form it. Writing the number comes later, as number formation develops alongside handwriting.
Summarised in our own words from the Primary Mathematics Curriculum (2023) and the NCCA Mathematics Toolkit.
