Activities and Printables for Counting On

Many kids do not realize that counting can start at any number; it doesn’t always have to start at one (1). Once kids can count and begin to recognize the dice dot patterns and the finger patterns on hands without needing to count, counting on with these is a great skill to try.

That’s exactly where MBug {age 5} was. Even though she can quickly recognize the dot patterns and finger patterns, she still felt the need to count starting with, “1,2,3…” each time. That is, until we started working on counting on with these activities and printables {FREE download at the end of this post}.

*This post contains affiliate links.

Counting On Activities and Printables

To introduce counting on, we did a simple activity with 1 die {from our Math Dice, Jr. game, which I LOVE!!!} and transparent counters.

She rolled the die and I placed 1-6 counters beside it. She had to start with the die, and count on, “5…6, 7, 8, 9.” We practiced this a few times together until I felt she could do it independently.

That same day, we worked on one page of counting on with dice and dots.

Then, as we were working through our letter 0 dice game from Reading the Alphabet, I showed her how to roll the dice and find the die with the larger number. We said that number and counted on from there using the number of dots on the other die. {You can find dice activity pages like this in all our Pre-K/K Packs and Lessons 15-31 of Reading the Alphabet.}

We tried a few more pages to practice counting on. The toughest page for her by far was the page where she had to use the fingers only. She kept pulling out her own fingers. We stopped midway and worked on recognizing the finger patterns with our fingers and then, the light bulb came on!

To help her remember how to count on, we used the strategy of put the biggest number in your pocket, then count on. I also included a printable chart for putting the big number in your head.