FREE Ten Frame Placemat with Number Sense Routines
Ten frames are one of the most versatile math tools you’ll use in the primary classroom. They’re perfect for helping students develop fluency with number combinations and making ten, but their usefulness doesn’t stop there. Because our base-ten number system is built on groups of ten, ten frames also provide a natural bridge to early place value concepts. Whether students are composing and decomposing numbers or beginning to think about tens and ones, ten frames help them build understanding through visual models.
While visiting my good friend Sara in Florida, I had the opportunity to observe in her classroom. That’s where I saw a clever number sense routine using a ten frame placemat. Sara and her teaching partner, Kelly, had created the placemats for their first-grade students, laminated them for durability, and used them as part of a series of daily number sense routines. I loved the idea so much that I created my own versions to share with you. One includes a number line across the top, while the other features a number path. Both are designed to print on 11 × 17 paper, making them the perfect size for working with two-color counters, but you can also scale them to fit other paper sizes if needed.
Sara and Kelly used the placemats for a variety of short, engaging number sense routines. Many of these activities can be completed in just a few minutes, making them perfect for a math warm-up, small-group instruction, or a quick review during your math block.
Build Number Sense by Counting
Have students begin in the upper-left corner and “read” the placemat from left to right, counting each ten frame as they go. As they move from frame to frame, encourage them to describe what they notice. How do the frames change each time? Are there more dots? Less white space? How many dots are added each time?
Extend the discussion by asking students what the frame before 1 would look like. What would we call it, and why? (A zero frame just wouldn’t fit on the placemat!) You can ask a similar question about the frame that would come after 9.
Build Number Recognition
Call out numbers in random order and have students quickly locate and touch the matching ten frame. Once students are comfortable with the activity, let partners take turns quizzing each other.
Model Addition and Subtraction
The large ten frames are perfect for using two-color counters. Ask students to find a frame, then model an addition or subtraction situation with counters.
For example, you might say, “Find the 3 frame. Add one more counter. How many do you have now? How did you know?” Before students begin working independently, model the routine under a document camera so everyone understands the expectations.
Subtraction works just as well. Students can cover dots with their fingers or counters as they solve problems such as, “Find the 7 frame. Take away 2. How many are left?”
Explore Partners of Ten
Have students find a given ten frame and identify its partner that makes ten. For example, if students touch the 2 frame, ask them to find the frame that represents its partner, 8.
Encourage students to compare the two frames. What do they notice about the filled spaces in one frame and the empty spaces in the other? These visual relationships help students develop a deeper understanding of the combinations that make ten.
Practice Mental Math
Call out an addition or subtraction expression and have students identify the ten frame that represents the answer. Because students are visualizing quantities rather than simply recalling facts, this routine helps strengthen number sense while building fluency.
Didn’t I tell you this is a great little tool? If you think of other ideas to add to the routines listed, please comment and share. Click here to grab your copy of the two versions of the placement.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Donna!!!!!
Amy
It’s great!! Same to you! I am SO excited-at a new school this year and I am in the same building with my kids!!! Still hoping you will come to Ohio one of these days! 🙂
Hey, Amy!! It’s a good one, huh? Hope you’re all fired up for the new school year. 🙂
How about, Maine?!?
Maine, Ohio…I’ll go wherever someone asks me to do a workshop! Just ask Sara! Ha ha.
Brilliant! And I would love to have gone out to dinner and talked all about math, too!
It was a great two days! It’s so exhilarating talking to teachers who are so passionate about teaching and their kiddos! 🙂
I really like this concept. But I think 2 rows of 5 dots each is not a good idea. It will cause kids to consider 5 a special number and may lead to some undesirable mental models. In fact, 9 dots in a row would be better in my opinion because then you can teach the concept of decimals easily.
There’s lots of research that supports using the ten-frame structure for young children. Van de Walle considers 5 and 10 as critical benchmark numbers.
“We want to help children relate a given number to other numbers, specifically 5 and 10. These relationships are especially useful in thinking about various combinations of numbers.”
A ten-frame helps children see the number 8 for example, as “5 and 3 more” but also “2 away from 10”. This type of number sense sets the stage for learning basic facts with conceptual understanding.
He goes on to say, “The most common and perhaps most important model for exploring this relationship is the ten-frame”.
It was wonderful meeting YOU!!! LOVE the pink dots and the number line. Hope this tool is enjoyed by others.
Glad you approve of my version! Thanks again for your hospitality. George thanks you, too. Ha ha.
Sara, what a great idea! Donna, thanks for sharing! I love it and am eager to make some for my K’s. Thanks again.
Sharing is what teaching is all about, Sandi!!
I really like your number line addition to the top! How fun to meet a cyber friend in person : )
~Lucy
Kids Math Teacher
It was great fun, Lucy! Glad you like the number line. 🙂
What a great tool. Thank you so much for sharing!
❀ Tammy
Forever in First
I love sharing great ideas! Especially ones that are so easy to implement. 🙂
That’s a fabulous idea, Donna!
Thank you so much.
Grade ONEderful
Ruby Slippers Blog Designs
You’re very welcome, Barbara! 🙂
Yay! I love this! Thank you so much for sharing. I can definitely see using this daily.
Julie
Awesome, Julie!!
Thanks for sharing. These are great! But what about the 10 frame for the number 10? isn’t that just as important?
Of course it’s important, Pam! The kiddos will get to use ten-frames for lots of different activities in the classroom. For this particular activity, the numbers 1-9 fit perfectly on the mat.
I gotcha….that makes sense. Thank you so much again. You have helped me to become a better Math teacher, and I look forward to reading your future posts.
Hi Donna, I’ve been getting your blog updates for ages and have done lots of reading and thinking as a result of reading your posts, so I just wanted to write and say thanks. I have a class set of these tens frames all ready to go with my Y2/3 class this week. (G1/2 in USA) I like the idea of using these as part of my repertoire of daily routines to develop number sense and imaging.
Thanks for all your sharing.
Tina
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment, Tina! Always nice to hear that something I’m doing is helping out. 🙂
A great idea! If I ever teach the younger children again, I am going to have mathematicians in my classroom with all the great ideas on pinterest and blogs!
Alison
Teaching Maths with Meaning
Hey, Alison! Nice to hear from you. I totally agree that the resources available on the Internet are mind-blowing! What an exciting time to be a teacher. 🙂
I got extremely frustrated trying to print this off and finally gave up…waste of paper and ink!
I am really sorry that the printing didn’t work for you!! I wish you had contacted me before it frustrated you so badly. Sometimes Google Docs can be a little squirrelly, but I can usually help.
Love it! I may try to change the dot color to match my classroom – but I am certainly going to use this!!
-Carol
Mrs. Cobb’s Kindersprouts
I’m thinking that you could print them on regular sized photocopier paper and just use smarties or some other small manipulative to “play” with it! Awesome…thanks for sharing!
That’s a great idea, Krissy! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Thank you for your product. I LOVE the research behind the tens frames and introduced them for the first time during an observation on the 16th day of school. However, I got burned. The administration wanted to know how many children I had in the class who could count past ten. (Seriously, they thought I was merely teaching them to count to 10). I used a great differentiated lesson from a well-known blogger, too. It included a self-correcting component, a numeral writing component, and a counting sequence component. They want more rigor in the Kindergarten classroom and they saw no evidence of student learning. I am an experienced teacher with an excellent reputation. My children can read and write when they leave me but the whole “increase the rigor” attitude is killing me. Increasing the rigor to the extent that my administration wants it is simply not developmentally appropriate. Thanks for letting me vent–my first post of the day!
That is a major bummer! Did they see you using the ten-frames to make combinations for 10? That is a totally different skill (and standard) than rote counting. Showing a ten-frame with 4 dots and asking “How many more to make 10?” supports CCSS K.OA.4. It is an Operations and Algebraic Thinking standard, not Counting and Cardinality.
We use these too except we teach kids to put the numbers in from top to bottom as this also gives students a visual of odd and even numbers. E.g. all odd numbers on top 1,3,7,9 with the even ones on the bottom row. This method is backed up by research (see George Booker).
That’s a great connection!
Hi! I am the Bulletin editor for the Kansas Association of Teachers of Mathematics. Do you mind if I provide a link to this post in our upcoming October Bulletin? Thank you!
That would be awesome! Thank you for sharing. 🙂
Thank you, Donna, for this great resource.