Ask a five-year-old to count to 60 and you'll get a brave, wobbly marathon. Ask them to count to 60 by tens and they're done before you've finished your coffee. That moment, when a kid realises numbers come in chunks, changes everything that follows.
A heron, a turtle and 100 lily pads
📖 A good one for bedtime — about 3 minutesIn Willow Pond there are exactly 100 lily pads in a long, curving line. Lily pad 100 is the Moon Pad, where the dragonflies dance every evening. Lulu the frog had never been there. Every time she tried, she counted every single pad — one, two, three, four — and by pad 31 she was too tired to go on.
One evening, Grandpa Tortuga was snoozing on pad 50. "Why do you hop on every pad, little one?" he asked, without opening his eyes.
"Because that's how counting works," said Lulu.
"Counting works lots of ways." He opened one eye. "Try jumping ten."
Lulu took a deep breath and leapt. Ten! Twenty! Thirty! She was at pad 30 in three jumps. Her legs didn't even hurt.
But then she needed to get to pad 35, where her friend Pip was waiting. A ten would be too far. "Small jumps for the end," said Grandpa Tortuga. "Big jumps to get close, small jumps to land."
So Lulu jumped five. Exactly pad 35. Pip cheered. And somewhere behind the reeds, the Great Grey Heron began to stir…
Get Lulu to the lily pad
A number line game: Lulu can jump +2, +5, +10 (and sometimes backwards). Five rounds: 0 to 20, 0 to 35, 7 to 47, 0 to 59 and 100 back down to 72. Try to land in the fewest jumps.
Why number lines work (for grown-ups)
A number line turns numbers into distances. That sounds small, but it's the foundation for almost everything in primary-school maths. When your child jumps from 7 to 47 in four tens, they're doing mental addition. When they jump 100 → 70 → 72, they're adding and subtracting in chunks — the same strategy adults use when they work out change without a calculator.
- 1Skip counting is the first step to the times tables. Jumps of 5 — 5, 10, 15, 20 — are the 5 times table. Kids who can skip count rarely panic at multiplication.
- 2"Big jumps first" is a real strategy. 7 + 40 is easier as 7 → 17 → 27 → 37 → 47 than as forty single hops. Fewer steps, fewer mistakes.
- 3Backwards jumps teach subtraction for free. Going from 100 to 72 is "100 minus 28" — but on a number line it feels like a puzzle, not a sum.
Draw a quick number line with chalk on the pavement, or with tape on the hallway floor, and let your kid physically jump it. Ten big steps, then two small ones. Bodies remember what worksheets don't.
Wake up before the heron
- Counting by 10 from 0: what comes after 40? 50
- Counting by 5: 15, 20, 25, … ? 30
- Counting by 2: 8, 10, 12, … ? 14
- From 30, three jumps of 10 land on…? 60
- From 100, jump back 10 twice: you're on…? 80
Games to play without a screen
- Stair counting. Every step is 2. Count up the stairs by twos: 2, 4, 6… Can they guess the top number before getting there?
- Clap and count. Count normally, but clap on every 5th number. After a few rounds, whisper the numbers and only say the clapped ones out loud: 5, 10, 15…
- Coin jars. Stack 10-cent coins and count by tens. Then mix in a 5 and see what happens.
Questions parents ask
What is skip counting?
Counting forward by the same amount each time, other than 1 — for example 2, 4, 6, 8 or 5, 10, 15, 20. It's how kids learn that numbers can be grouped.
When should kids learn to count by 2s, 5s and 10s?
Most kids are ready for tens around 5 or 6 years old, then fives and twos. By 7 or 8 they should count by 2s, 5s and 10s fairly confidently, which makes the times tables much easier.
How do I use a number line at home?
Draw one from 0 to 20 (or 0 to 100 in tens) and use a toy as the 'frog'. Ask: how can you get from 6 to 16? From 20 back to 14? Let your child choose the jumps.
Is skip counting the same as multiplication?
It's the step right before. Counting 5, 10, 15, 20 is the same as 1×5, 2×5, 3×5, 4×5. When kids see that, the times tables stop being a list to memorise.
Lulu did reach the Moon Pad that night, by the way. Ten jumps of ten? Nine tens and two fives? Ask your kid how many different ways she could have done it. There's more than one right answer — and finding them all is the real game.