Getting to one hundred, and how many words it takes

I can walk to one hundred by twos, by fives and by tens.

A skip count is a walk with a fixed step. Different steps land on different numbers and still arrive at the same place.

The child lands on one hundred on all three walks, touching every number and saying it, without hunting for the next one.

First lesson. Ask the class to count to one hundred by ones and stop them at about twenty. Ask whether there is a faster way to get there.

The book's last page is a hundred chart in three colours with its own instructions: the twos are red, the fives are green, the tens are blue, and all three lists end on one hundred.

Children touch the four cats one at a time to start at ones, then put a stick on the first red number and slide it along every red to one hundred, then do the greens, then the blues, saying each number as they land.

Three completed walks, each ending on one hundred, and the ten blue numbers written into a strip of ten boxes.

Children read the blue strip back with the chart turned over, so the tens are said from the walk rather than read off the page.

I can count how many number words each walk costs.

Faster means fewer words for the same hundred. That is a thing you can count rather than a thing you are told.

The child writes three counts — fifty, twenty, ten — and says that all three walks end on one hundred while the blues need the fewest words.

Yesterday all three walks finished in the same square. Ask which one felt longest, and say that today the class is going to find out whether that feeling is right.

Sebastian's whole problem is time: counting one by one will take forever, twos will be faster, and by the end he wants tens.

Children point at every red number in turn and count the pointing rather than the numbers, saying one, two, three as the finger moves, and write the count on the reds line; then they do the same for the greens and the blues.

A slip carrying three word counts, with all three walks checked to have finished in the same square.

Children look at their three counts, say which is smallest, and say the whole sentence: all three land on one hundred, but the blues get there in the fewest words.

I can lay a ten for every number word I say, and take them away again.

When the thing you hold and the thing you say change together, a skipped or doubled number word is visible on the desk instead of only audible.

The child lays and says the tens to one hundred and counts the same strips back down to nothing without losing the place.

The chart gave the tens as numbers to land on. Today each ten is something in the hand.

The book prints the by-tens count twice, and it is the only run of numbers in the text carried all the way to its destination — one child counts this way because it gets him to a hundred fast, and the other does not believe him.

Children lay one ten-strip and say ten, a second and say twenty, one strip and one number word each time until the strips run out, then take them away one at a time and say the number left after each one goes.

A hundred built as ten strips and taken apart again, with the last number said loudly enough for a partner to hear where the count stopped.

A partner builds a pile of strips while the child looks away. The child counts the pile by tens without taking it apart and says the number of strips and the number of squares as two different numbers.

I can snap ten cubes into a ten and build a hundred out of ten of them.

A group can stop being counted and start being counted with. That is why a hundred takes ten number words instead of a hundred, and without it the tens are only a rhyme.

The child says both numbers the block carries — ten strips and one hundred cubes — and says why the hundred did not change when one ten came apart and went back.

Yesterday the strips were handed over already ten long. Today nobody may call a strip ten until they have snapped it out of ten singles.

The line that ends the argument says the count reached a hundred by tens, and a child who has only chanted the tens can say that sentence without knowing what it claims.

Children snap ten single cubes into one strip and say ten as it closes, keep going until they hold ten strips, saying the running number as each one closes, and lay the ten strips side by side in a square block.

A hundred block built from earned tens, with both of its numbers said aloud.

Children take one strip out of the block, snap it into singles, count them to check there are ten, put the block back together and say why the hundred did not change.

I can say how many number words a count to one hundred by tens takes, and name the sentences that prove it.

The two children in the book shout at each other, and shouting settles nothing. The sentences that fix the answer are the ones carrying the step and the destination.

The child gives the number and names the two evidence sentences, in that order, and a partner agrees the sentences really do fix it.

Lesson 2 counted the words on a chart. Today the same question is asked about the argument in the book, and the answer has to be handed in with its evidence.

One child says the count reached a hundred by tens and the other does not believe him, and the book never says how many number words that count actually takes.

After hearing the argument read through, children hunt out the two sentences that would settle it, then lay one ten-strip for every number word of the tens count until the hundred chart is covered, and count the strips.

A covered hundred chart, the number of number words the tens count took, and two named evidence sentences.

Children start covering the same chart one square per number word, do not finish, and say how many words it would take to cover the whole chart that way and how they know from the chart in front of them.

I can count three different handfuls and find they are the same amount.

One amount has many shapes. Four coins and a hundred coins can be the same number of cents, and the way to know is to count each one its own way.

The child counts all three trays with the right count for each and says a same-amount sentence naming two of them and the cents they share.

One hundred has been a square on a chart and a block of strips. Today it is an amount of money, and it arrives in three different handfuls.

Three cats pay for the same thing with completely different handfuls, and the book asserts the handfuls match without ever counting one.

Pairs put out the coins each payment line names in its own tray, then count the four quarters by twenty-fives and the ten dimes by tens, one touch to one number word, and say whether the two trays came to the same number.

Three trays, each counted its own way and carded with its amount, and a spoken same-amount sentence naming two of them.

Children fill ten-frames with Anna's hundred pennies, count the full frames by tens to one hundred, and say what is the same about this tray and Jenny's four coins and what is different.

I can keep counting from the number I reached when the coin changes.

A count does not have to start again when the step changes. It carries on from where it stopped, and the place it changes step is where the running total gets lost.

The child counts the whole handful without restarting and names both places the count changed step, saying which coin made each change.

Yesterday each tray could be counted one way all the way through. Today one handful cannot.

Zach's is the only handful in the book that mixes three kinds of coin, and it is the one that cannot be counted with a single skip count.

Children set out seven dimes, one quarter and five pennies in their own places, count the dimes by tens to seventy, and carry the count on across the quarter to seventy-five and then along the pennies to one hundred without starting over.

A counted mat reaching one hundred cents, with both change-of-step places named aloud and repeated back by a partner.

Children set Zach's mat beside Jenny's four quarters, say one sentence naming both and the cents they share, then say what is different about them using the number of coins rather than the number of cents.