Counting by fives

Because Suzi had a birthday last week, she received several cards with $5 bills in them. She was so excited. Of course, she wanted to count her money. This led us to try counting by fives. I hadn't intended to start that quite yet, but for counting money it definitely comes in handy!

I remember having the hardest time counting by fives as a child. The only instruction I recall getting was rote memorization and calling out the numbers as a class. There may have been some sort of manipulative used, but I do not remember it. We were probably given worksheets for it, but those were torture for me as I couldn't finish them fast enough, couldn't focus, and was kept in from recess to work on them. Anyway, during skip counting I was lost in a sea of chanting children. I needed a visual or some sort of way to tangibly connect counting by fives to something familiar. When I forgot which number was next I was totally stuck, until one day my brother's girlfriend told me that if I got confused I could just count five up to the next number. It literally hadn't occurred to me!

I told Suzi to hold her hand up and count on her fingers. Starting with her thumb, I told her to whisper "1, 2, 3, 4," and then when she got to her pinky finger to yell "5!!!" Suzi loves yelling. Then we started back at her thumb and counted "6, 7, 8, 9... 10!!!" We continued to about 30. Then we did a little dance and counted rhythmically by fives up to 30 or so. Memorizing things this way is fine, but some kids (like me when I was little) need to have this information anchored in a meaningful way to something they already get, in a way that is agreeable with their learning style. We will also use our little number chart that I colored for skip counting. I colored the fives and tens in red. That way, Suzi can count just the reds and she will be counting by fives. It's already been a helpful visual aid for counting by tens.

I found this neat website called IXL the other day. It has all kinds of interactive online games for teaching math skills (and other subjects as well). Check out their problems for counting by fives! You don't have to pay to play the games, but if you buy a membership you get access to more features. I am seriously considering it, but there are just too many fun things to buy! Homeschooling can get expensive fast.

If you have already started skip counting, how did your child understand it best?