Mastering Numbers in the Teens and Twenties

As my class prepares for the 100th day of school, we are working on number writing and recognition. Everyone is FINALLY over the hump of those pesky numbers in the teens and twenties. I swear, the numbers in the teens are the hardest numbers to learn in the whole series up to 100. They're called numbers in the teens, but eleven and twelve don't even have the word "teen" in them. And then there's thirteen and fifteen (not three-teen and five-teen which would just be so much more logical!)

Needless to say, I have pulled a few tricks out of my hat to help my each and every one of my students  master these tricky numbers. We have been counting, writing, finding, arranging, and singing every day in my classroom as we work toward mastery.

First on the list… number mazes! My students use bingo dotters to create a counting path on the paper. This particular number maze counts from 1 to 20
 I also believe that independent exploration is an important facet of each student's development so I made a simple interactive number line on my classroom whiteboard. The line itself is just created with painters tape (because it will peel off easily when we are finished with the number line.) I laminated number squares, cut them apart, and added a magnet to the back of each piece so students could manipulate and rearrange the numbers as they work to learn their numerals. This instantly became such a popular area of the classroom!

Now that my students have mastered their numbers up to 30, we are busy getting ready for the 100th day of school. I'll be back soon with an update on our progress!