Have you checked out our amazing handmade ten frame yet? If you haven’t, head over to our shop before you read this post!
My nanny charges are now 4 and 2 which means we are moving out of the double toddler stage, it makes me a little sad but also excited because both kids are really motivated to learn. Our work periods are extending!!
If you are not familiar, 10 frames are wonderful tools for counting, one to one correspondence, and teaching number bonds! We love filling our board with colorful pom poms, felted wool balls, or other themed counting tools.
My absolute favorite way to use a 10 Frame is to fill it with pom poms. When introducing the tool, I let the children explore with tons of pom poms. I don’t give many instructions other than “fill these up” I might show how to make simple patterns or ask my charge to fill the board with one color. Other times it’s just free play. We are still working one to one correspondence skills through this type of play!
After pom poms, we move on to beads or other sensory fillers. This is a fun way to incorporate fine motor skills like scooping and emptying.
After we’ve mastered these two skills, we move onto isolating numbers. I will fill up a container with 10 counters, a set of numbers or number cards, and a fine motor tool. I will ask the child to pull a number from the basket and then fill the frame. This works on number recognition along with one to one correspondence plus an extra fine motor challenge.
You can also place 10 counters in a basket (or in the reverse side of our board!) and ask your child to fill a specific number. This is also a fun way to work on patterns and matching.
During this time we might add some coding cards for color matching practice and visual discrimination work.
I put this page together in our active learning journal as a starting point! Simply give the child the color poms or balls needed to finish each frame. You could start by matching the picture first and then moving onto filling the frame. My oldest charge mastered these set ups pretty quickly so I made a printable for added practice. These are available in our shop as a digital download!
For number recognition work, I made some number discs to go along with our number erasers (from Target).
You could turn this into a missing number game by skipping numbers to have your child complete.
This set up encouraged a ridiculously sweet sibling moment!
I hope you’ve gained a few more ideas on how to use 10 Frames or even purchased a 10 frame for your own child! I’d love to hear from you, find me on Instagram @theteachingnanny or email me theteachingnannyblog@gmail.com!
The Teaching Nanny 