It All Begins with Counting: Building Number Sense Through Counting Collections at Every Grade Level

When we think about foundational math skills, counting is often seen as something students “should already know.” But the truth is, counting is one of the most powerful tools we have for building number sense from Kindergarten through upper elementary.

It seems basic enough. We begin teaching students counting words through chants and songs. Then, those words become adjectives that describe how many objects through number conservation and cardinality. This is often where it stops, but there's another intentional step that must be included.

Students go through a process when learning to count.

The Developmental Path of Counting

Students go through a clear process when learning to count. Each step plays a critical role in building mathematical fluency and conceptual understanding.

1. Visual Recognition through Subitizing

Students first learn to quickly identify quantities without counting one by one. This is why you can glance at a die or domino and instantly know it shows five. This visual skill, subitizing, is essential to building fluency, especially in composing and decomposing numbers. Without it, students rely on inefficient counting strategies far too long. Subitizing lays the foundation for fact fluency and understanding larger quantities.

2. Seeing Numbers as Composed of Other Numbers

As students progress, they begin to see that numbers aren’t isolated. They’re made of other numbers. This understanding forms the basis for all four operations. Through structured counting experiences, students develop a mental number line. They recognize that moving to the right means increasing value and moving to the left means decreasing value. This spatial relationship is key not only for whole numbers, but also for understanding decimals and fractions.

3. Extending Counting Beyond the Basics

Counting doesn’t end with 1 to 100. As students grow, they explore new periods of the place value chart, skip count with multiples, and eventually count in fractional and decimal parts. The act of counting, when it’s intentional and structured, continues to support math understanding through the upper grades. In fact, counting skills can predict success later in making sense of computation, such as addition and subtraction (Tate & Markel, 2025).

Why Counting Collections Work

Counting collections provide the perfect structure to support this developmental progression beginning in the primary grades. They invite students to:

• Organize and quantify real objects

• Communicate their strategies and thinking

• Develop fluency through repetition and variation

• Make sense of our number system concretely and visually

The best part? Counting collections don’t have to be complicated. Simply offer students a container of objects and a space to organize them, and you’ve created a meaningful counting experience.

As students group, estimate, model, and record their thinking, they begin to bridge the gap between rote counting and deep mathematical understanding. It’s through these simple routines that number sense is built, fluency is developed, and math becomes something students can make sense of, not just memorize.

Counting Games by Grade Band

Counting evolves as students grow and learn new numbers. Here are simple counting games tailored for each stage of development:

Kindergarten–Grade 1: Building Foundations

🧸 Game: Grab & Count

This one is so simple but so effective. I use it in these grades every single time we count a quantity. Simply provide your students with counters or connecting cubes.

Say: Show me 6 cubes.

Ask: How do you know you have 6? Possible answers: I counted them. Ask: Show me how you counted. Watch how students organize their objects. Do they point to each one? Are they in a line? All of this is vital information.

Ask: Can you show me 6 in another way? Invite students to arrange them in another way and prove to their partner that they still have 6.

This game can be played independently by providing students digit cards that they set out and represent.

Extend the activity by asking students to determine what 1 more would be and 1 fewer.

🧸 Counting Centers

This is probably the easiest one to implement and is great for quantities of 20 or more. Simply take a container and fill it with a specific number of objects. This can be buttons, bottle caps, teddy bears, coins or anything else you have around.

• Invite students to first estimate how many they think there might be. This is essential, because students' estimates should get better as they count more.

• Ask students to use counting tools to help organize the objects and count them efficiently. This could be by placing each object on a number of a hundred chart and counting one by one. It could be by placing objects in ten frames and skip counting by 10s to find how many in all.

• Encourage students to describe how they know how many objects there are and consider checking by counting another way.

Grades 2–3: Building Place Value and Structure

🧮 Counting and Place Value

As you move through your place value chapters, this is the best time to begin working on counting. Many teachers jump right into representing numbers with place value and skip the counting portion. Then, they wonder why students cannot round. It's because rounding asks which number is closest and students don't know how to count to find the nearby numbers.

Ask students to make a number with base ten blocks like 237.

Say: Prove to your partner that you have 237. Students should show their partner and will probably say, "2 hundreds, 3 tens, 7 ones"

Ask: How would you count to 237 using each place value? Students should count 100, 200, 210, 220, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237.

Ask: How would you show it in another way? Possible answers: Students may show 1 hundred, 13 tens and 7 ones. Encourage them to count it to show that they still have 237.

You can check out this quick video of me modeling this activity with a student. Notice how the student is prompted to count and show each time. If this becomes an expectation, students will begin to do it automatically each time they represent numbers.

🧮 Bizz, Buzz

I learned this game a long time ago from Marilyn Burns and use it all the time. I love it, because it can be used with any magnitude of numbers.

Provide students with a hundred chart in a Smart Pal and a dry erase marker.

Arrange students in a circle and tell them they are going to begin counting from a number. Every time they land on a multiple of 3, they should say "bizz" instead of the number.

You can have students begin counting at 1 or even 237. It totally depends on you.

To support students visually, encourage them to follow along on their hundred chart and even circle the multiples of 3 with a dry erase markers.

To make the game even more challenging, add another level by asking students to say "buzz" when they land on a multiple of 2. If they land on a multiple of 2 and 3, they should say "bizz, buzz".

Grades 4–6: Modeling and Efficiency

Any of the previous games will also work for these grade levels. Students should be encouraged to count any time they represent numbers with place value chips especially as they work with numbers in the hundred thousands and millions place.

📦 Rounding Rules

Instead of teaching students to look to the place to the left and decide if it's 5 or more to raise the score, encourage students to consider what numbers would fall to either side of the number line.

Provide students with a number line template, some index cards and a die. On the index cards write tens, hundreds, thousands and ten thousands.

Ask students to roll the die to make a 4-digit number. Then, choose an index card to determine how to round the number.

Using the number line template, ask students to first skip count to determine the numbers on either side of the number line. For example, if I made 3,783 and want to round to the nearest ten, I could skip count 3,700, 3,710, 3,720, 3,730, 3,740, 3,750, 3,760, 3,770, 3,780 and 3,790.

Ask: Which one is 3,783 closest to?

This activity is great, because it builds upon counting while teaching the concept of rounding. It can also work with decimals.

📦 Decimal and Fraction Skip Count

This game seems pretty obvious but is very effective. Provide students with a color coded place value chart for decimals. You may want to place it in a page protector and provide students with dry erase markers or place value chips.

Arrange students in a circle. Ask students to begin with a decimal like 0.45 and begin to skip count by tenths. Each student should record their number on their place value chart and show it to the circle as they say it making a giant number line. Encourage students to look for patterns when counting.

This same activity can be used for skip counting by fractions by asking students to write their fraction on a whiteboard. Encourage students to use only improper fractions or simplest form as an additional challenge.

In both scenarios, provide manipulatives whenever needed.

It Starts with Counting

Counting isn’t just a kindergarten skill. It’s a lifelong tool for mathematical reasoning. Whether students are organizing small collections or modeling large quantities, counting builds the number sense they’ll need for operations, problem-solving, and beyond.

Whether you set aside time for a center activity or just build it into your daily problem-solving, counting practice can make a huge difference. Just give students time, space, and something to count and watch their understanding grow.

✨Want To Do These in Your Classroom Now?

👉🏼 Get started today with free student-friendly directions, recording sheets, and graphic organizers to help you launch your own counting routines with ease!

Reference:

Tate, H., & Markel, A. (2025, February). Building Mathematical Foundations Through Counting Collections. Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK–12