What is subitizing and why do we want to start practicing it with students at such a young age? Subitizing is the ability to be able to recognize a number without having to count. Usually, a smaller number. It is part of number sense development. Being able to recognize groups quickly is a foundation that students will build on.
There are many ways we are already implementing this skill in to our classrooms. Many of us use dice, ten frames, dominos, dot cards, tens and ones…etc. to teach this skill. Often, teachers aren’t sure how to specifically teach subitizing. I wanted to share a couple of resources and fun activities that you can do to reinforce these skills.
First off, we all know and love YouTube (you know to plug all of these YouTube videos in to ViewPure, right? They eliminate the adds for us!).
The first video is a great introduction to subitizing. It gets students to think of different ways to think about numbers. Jack Hartmas always has wonderful videos filled with a lot of useful content for students. They like getting up to dance with him 🙂 Getting the wiggles out is never a bad thing!
I love using these songs as a warm up during math time. They get up and get moving before a math workshop. As long as they aren’t screaming the numbers, I let them call out the numbers that they see on the slides. I think putting this skill with movement is always a plus Students tend to enjoy it more as well!Â
I found a couple of resources on TPT that are free. You can use as a math warm up like I do. The other option is to use these cards in a math stub or math station.Â
We all should have ten frames and dice in our classrooms and this is an easy math station to set up with a dice and a ten frame. Students roll the dice and then build it on the ten frame. Easy peasy!
If you haven’t started to work on subitizing with your students yet, I hope I gave you some ideas to help you get started. If you have been, then yay for you and keep up the great work!
