Skip Counting

1. Skip counting is a fun and valuable math skill. It helps students get to know numbers better, recognize patterns, and learn how multiplication and division work.
2. Students create a number grid using Crayola Color Switchers Markers. Write numerals from 1 to 100 in rows of 10 across a large piece of construction paper. If so desired, draw a grid of 10 rows of 10 large squares before writing the numbers, so they will be evenly spaced. If Color Switchers Markers are not available, Cra;yola Washable Markers can be substituted.
3. Provide students with the opportunity to skip count by tens, Flip the marker and apply the special color switcher to write over each number you say as you count, 10, 20, 30…. All of the numbers you traced over are called multiples of 10.
4. Ask students to view their grids. Do they notice a color pattern on your number grid? (All of the tens are a different color going down the far right column.) What else is the same about all of those numbers in the right column? (All of these numbers are answers to multiplication problems in which one factor is 10. All of these numbers can also be divided evenly by 10.) Multiples of 10 really are special!
5. Now ask students to skip count by fives, using a different Color Switchers Marker to write over each number as you count, 5, 10, 15, 20…. When you get to a number that is already written over, like 10 or 20, draw a box around it with the Marker. All of the numbers counted can be called multiples of five.
6. Ask students what they notice when counting by fives? (Every other number is one of the same numbers you counted when you counted by tens. So all of the multiples of 10 are also included in the multiples of five. All of the multiples of five are answers to multiplication problems in which one factor is five. All of these numbers can also be divided evenly by five.) That’s what’s special about multiples of five.
7. Mathematical patterns stand out when you color-code them with Color Switchers! What other patterns can you discover?

LA: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade level topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

MATH: Gain familiarity with factors and multiples.

MATH: Generate and analyze patterns.

VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

Offer students the opportunity to create additional number grids to explore skip county by other numbers, such as by twos, fours, and sizes. Create an additional grid to county by threes, sizes, and nines. Have students discuss the growing patterns that they are observing. Which numbers found are multiples in more than one group?

Have students organize into small groups and discuss the connections between the patterns they see in their skip counting grids and finding factors and multiples.

Use skip counting grids to identify prime numbers. How are these numbers different from those included in skip counting?