Teaching Skip Counting at Home, From Songs to Multiplication

Your child can count to 100 without a pause. Then you ask them to count by fives and they freeze after 15, or start adding on their fingers. Skip counting looks like a small skill, but it's the bridge between counting and multiplication, and it's easy to rush past.

The good news: skip counting for kids is one of the most teachable skills in early math. It starts with patterns your child can hear and see, then moves to objects and number lines. It ends with your child noticing that counting by threes four times is the same as 3 × 4. This post walks through each stage, with activities for home and a quick way to check that it's sticking.

What is skip counting?

Skip counting means counting forward by a number other than one: 2, 4, 6, 8, or 5, 10, 15, 20. Each step adds the same amount. It builds number sense, makes counting large groups faster, and lays the groundwork for multiplication, because counting by 3s four times lands on 12, which is 3 × 4.

In the Common Core standards, children count to 100 by ones and tens in kindergarten (K.CC.A.1). They skip-count by 5s, 10s and 100s within 1,000 in second grade (2.NBT.A.2). By the end of third grade they're expected to know multiplication facts within 100 fluently (3.OA.C.7), which skip counting makes much easier.

Which numbers should kids skip count by first?

Start with 10s, then 5s, then 2s. Tens are the easiest because the pattern is visible in the numbers themselves: 10, 20, 30. Fives follow because they alternate between 5 and 0 at the end. Twos connect to even numbers. After those, move to 3s and 4s, then the rest.

Stage one: hear and say it

Start with sound. Count by tens and fives out loud together, clapping on each number, marching, or bouncing a ball. Short songs and chants help the sequence stick, especially for 2s, 5s and 10s. At this stage, your child is memorizing a pattern, and that's fine. The understanding comes in the next stage.

Keep it short and playful: a minute or two in the car, at bath time or while setting the table. Saying the sequence often matters more than saying it for a long time.

Stage two: see and touch it

Next, connect the chant to real groups. Lay out pairs of socks and count them by 2s. Stack coins in groups of five, or use hands, since each hand has five fingers. Bundle sticks or straws in tens. Your child should see that each number in the sequence is a group added on, not only the next word in a song.

A number line or hundred chart makes the pattern visible too. Have your child color every fifth square on a hundred chart. The colored squares line up in columns, which shows the pattern in a way the song can't.

Stage three: start anywhere

Once your child can skip count from zero, ask them to start somewhere else. "Count by tens starting at 7." (7, 17, 27, 37.) "Count by fives from 35." (35, 40, 45.) Starting from a number that isn't a multiple shows whether your child understands adding a group each time, rather than reciting a memorized list.

Counting backward is the next step: 50, 45, 40, 35. That builds toward subtraction and division later.

Stage four: connect it to multiplication

Skip counting becomes multiplication when your child notices how many jumps they made. Count by 3s, holding up a finger for each number: 3, 6, 9, 12. Four fingers are up, and you landed on 12. That's 3 × 4 = 12. Draw it as four groups of three, too, so the picture, the count and the equation all match.

Try a few together:

Over time, your child will skip-count less and remember facts more. That's the goal. Skip counting is a strategy for working out facts they don't know yet, not a replacement for knowing them.

How do you know skip counting is sticking?

Check three things. Can your child skip count from a starting number that isn't zero? Can they count backward? Can they explain what 4 × 5 means using skip counting? If they can do all three, the skill is solid. If they can only recite from zero, go back to objects and start-anywhere practice.

If skip counting stays shaky, the gap may be underneath it, in counting by ones past 100 or in place value. Tracing a struggle back to the missing skill shows how to find it. And when skip counting turns into multiplication and division, word problems are the next place kids freeze; when your child freezes at math word problems covers that. For the bigger picture of teaching math at home, see how to teach fractions at home.

Common questions

At what age do kids learn skip counting? Counting by tens usually starts in kindergarten. Skip counting by 5s, 10s and 100s is a second-grade standard in the Common Core. Skip counting by other numbers often comes in second and third grade, as multiplication begins.

Is skip counting the same as multiplication? No, but it's closely related. Skip counting finds the answer by adding equal groups one at a time. Multiplication is knowing the result directly. Skip counting is a bridge to it.

My child can recite by fives but doesn't understand it. What now? Go back to objects. Count real groups of five, like fingers, coins or blocks, and have your child start from numbers other than zero. Understanding comes from seeing each jump as adding a group.

The short version

Skip counting builds from sound to objects to multiplication. Start with tens, fives and twos, use real groups and a hundred chart, practice starting anywhere and counting backward, then connect jumps to multiplication facts. This week, pick one sequence your child knows by heart and count it with real objects, then ask them to start from 7.

Sources: Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, K.CC.A.1, 2.NBT.A.2, 3.OA.C.7.