Has your child Mastered These Key 1st Grade Math Skills?

Following is my list of the top skills your child should master in 1st grade math in order to develop the fundamental math skills needed for future math classes.

Counting to 100:

First Graders should be able to count to 100 and even backwards from 100. This is the Foundation Skill upon which all other 1st grade math skills (and even elementary math skills) will be built.

Once your child masters this, you'll want him to practice skip counting, first by 10's, then by 5's and finally by 2's. For his own future math success, you want him to be able to do this without thinking about it - as easily as he can recite the ABC's.

Mastering counting up and down to 100 is a prerequisite skill for addition and subtraction with regrouping. Skip counting is the cornerstone skill for multiplication (which is simply repeated addition).

Download our free, printable skip counting skills practice sheets to help your child memorize number relationships 1-100.

Memorize the 1st Grade Math Facts: Two Digit Add/Subtract to 20:

The TOP PRIORITY SKILL your child should take have in his 1st grade math curriculum is memorizing the Math Facts. That mean memorizing all the addition and subtraction combinations between 1-20. Memorizing this is KEY to future math success. This is so important I want to repeat it, Memorizing the math facts is absolutely critical to your child's math success in all of elementary school!

Practice the math facts first by using manipulatives (see below for a great manipulative). Don't make the practice boring. Make it fun! There are so many fun, valuable math fact games out there to choose from.

Finally, when your child gets the concepts of the math facts, have her practice them on paper. In 1st grade math we emphasize math practice through many modalities, doing the work with paper and pencil should come well after the child has been exposed to the concrete presentation of doing math work with manipulatives.

Be sure to check out my free, printable first grade math activities worksheets to practice at home.

Finally just quiz your child to see if she know it by rote memorization. Don't give up, even if she's in second grade before she has it memorized. Keep the practice light and fun and give a nice prize or outing as a reward for memorizing it all.

Understanding Place Value to 99:

Before the end of the 1st grade math curriculum, your child should be able to know which are 10's and which are 1's and he should be able to add sets of tens and ones by the end of the year. This is a key prerequisite for addition and subtraction throughout the tens up to 100.

Here's a Terrific Manipulative for this skill:

This Base Ten Math Manipulative helps children visualize the math problems they're solving. For 1st grade math students 19-12 is an abstract concept! But 1 ten/9 ones minus 1 ten/2 ones becomes conctrete when a child uses these manipulatives to solve the problem. You can use this set to do math fact games with your child for a few minutes every day until he masters the math facts. This set includes hundreds (a flat square of ten 10's attached) and thousands (a cube of ten hundreds attached), making it a valuable tool you can keep using as your child gets into higher grades and begin doing addition and subtraction with regrouping and up into the hundreds and thousands. (This set is also a GREAT way to demonstrate squaring and cubing to older elementary students. 10 squared (100) looks like a square and 10 cubed (1000) looks like a cube. You can do with with smaller numbers too, 2 squared will look like a squared and 2 cubed will look like a cube... very cool!) ***If you only ever buy one math manipulative, this is the one I would say is a *MUST* to have in the house or classroom.***

Writing the Numerals Accurately:

1st grade math students need to achieve accurate numeral formation. Generally this progresses naturally as they also are working on letter formation. However, be sure they get enough number writing practice to avoid reversals or 9/6 confusions, which are common at this age.

Also, the child should practice writing numbers up to 99. By the end of first grade students should understand that "72" means a "7" in the tens place and a "2" in the ones place, and not write "702" (70-2).

Research shows that practice with the writing fingers (first two fingers) in the sensory experience of tracing the number (and letter) shapes will help the child learn to accurately form the numbers.

If your child is having trouble with numeral formation, one tip is to simply write a large "3" for example and have your child trace his first two fingers over it a few times before writing his own "3". Many children learn better using a multisensory approach. Make sandpaper numerals for him to trace with his writing fingers. If you're the crafty type, you can make them yourself with craft glue and sand on card stock.

Early Fractions: Learn the concept of Halves/Fourths:

Teaching the concept of fractions to younger grades REQUIRES the use of manipulatives. The Fractions concept is too abstract to simply use pictures and worksheets to teach the concept.

Children should be given a set of something and shown how to divide the set into two equal parts.

The Hershey Company publishes a Fractions Book that uses a Hershey bar to demonstrate early fractions concepts!. This is a very fun book.

This is one of those lessons that everyone loves - parents and teachers, because its an "AHA Moment" when the child "gets" the concept of fractions. Students love it because they get to do math with a chocolate bar. Its a great tool.

The lessons in the book are simple. If you don't want to buy the book, just buy a few Hershey bars and do it yourself. Tell the student they can keep "1" of the "2" halves. - That is 1/2.

When teaching Fourths, first ask the child which they think is greater, 1/4 or 1/2.

Then break one bar into fourths, and another into halves and show how 1 out of 2 is greater than 1 out of 4. Then be sure to enjoy the candy bar together.

You can also do this exercise with M&Ms (or if you want to skip the candy, do it with paper clips). Then go through the exercise of dividing two sets of 20 M&Ms - one into 1/4'ths and one into 1/2's and then ask the child which one has more. Discuss why.

After demonstrating with the manipulatives, then move onto doing workbook type problems with pictures.

Trust me, your child will LOVE doing this math lesson with you.

Learn the concept of Evens and Odds:

First explain how even and odd numbers take turns. Even numbers always have a partner (show sets of manipulatives and let the children see if every unit in the set has a partner. If it does, then the set is an even number, if it doesn't the set is an odd number set.

Here's a fun chant some teachers use to teach evens and odds:

"2,4,6,8,10 -- even numbers let's say it again!"
"1,3,5,7,9 -- odd numbers, very fine!"

Like all pneumonic devices, trust me, do this over a few days and your child will literally remember it forever.

Now that the child knows which are even and which are odd, use the calendar to reinforce the concept by discussing which are even and which are odd calendar days.

Learn Money And Coin Values:

Before introducing coin names and values, I would give your child a lot of real coins to sort. Give a mixture of all coins and let your child see and feel them. Then talk about values. Make a chart showing which coins have which values. Only after the student has had lots of time to match up the coins to their correct values on a chart you will see the children will naturally begin memorizing the coin values.

Finally introduce coin values and math problems.

Obviously you can cross teach the skills of Place Value, Counting to 100 and Fractions with your coins lessons.

It would be fun to introduce the child to the concept of beginning a coin collection. Perhaps there is a child in the class who collects coins. Here's a great article about why coin collecting is a great, math-rich hobby for elementary students.

Learn Ordinal Numbers to 20:

Describe Ordinal numbers as a way to describe what ORDER things come in. Talk about a race. We want to know who came in First, Second, Third, etc.

A fun activity to help children grasp this concept is to make sets of cards: one set says, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc... The second set says First, Second, Third, etc. Begin the lesson by taping the cards onto 5 children's backs and letting one or two students try to put those children in the right order.

Continue by using higher and higher numbers to 20th until every student has a chance to order their friends and demonstrates an understanding of the concepts.

Patterns: Demonstrating ability to extend the pattern correctly:

1st grade math students should be able to recognize patterns and be able to accurately extend the patterns. Again practice with manipulatives is preferable and should be mastered before working with patterns on printed paper.

To practice, make patterns out of everyday household items, colored paper clips, legos, matchbox cars, etc.

Learning to extend patterns involves quite a bit of concentration. If you think your child help developing his concentration skills, check out some of these great activities for improving concentration for elementary students.

Key 1st grade math vocabulary:

Before the end of first grade, you child should master the following math vocabulary:

Addend: The term for one number that is added to another number (addend) to form a sum

Difference: the amount by which one quantity is greater or less than another.

Sum: What you get (the answer) when the addends are added together

Subtract: To take away one number value from another. Also called deduct.

Be sure you always keep the math work time with your child light and fun and not more than 10 - 15 minutes at a time.

Your dedication to your child's math education will help him develop into a successful math student for life!

Learn tips to help your child memorize the Math Facts and Print our FREE first grade math activities worksheets.

Discover my top recommended games and activities that are great for first grade math practice.

Go back to the top of this page of 1st Grade Math.

Learn more goals for the first grade math curriculum.

Go back to the Sensible Math Education Home Page.

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