Counting Isn’t Just for Primary Grade Students
By Lynsey Gibbons and Kendra Lomax
Learning about counting and number is foundational for young children. In our three previous blog posts (Counting: Why is it Important and How Do We Support Children? Part 1; Counting with Muna; and Counting Activities to Try with Primary Students), we explored the complexity of counting, and we shared activities for supporting young children in learning to count. In this final post, we propose that older children also benefit from opportunities to count and develop ideas about number and quantity. To better understand why we think counting in the intermediate grades is important, let’s first look at how Hamza, a fourth-grade student, worked through a division problem.
Ahmed has 146 pieces of candy. He wants to put 10 candies in each box. How many boxes will he need? How many candies will be left?
