Welcome teachers! Are you looking for a fun, engaging activity to help your students through an easy developing number sense game? If so, look no further than Make It! – an interactive number game designed specifically for kindergarteners that helps them think critically, work together and learn about numbers.

In this game, players are tasked with building towers out of cubes in order to match the number shown on the playing board. This is a great way for young learners to enhance their understanding of “Trusting the Count”.

So get ready to have some fun while making math connections come alive – let’s take a closer look at how Make It works and how your students are going to love it!

Why Students need to Develop Number Sense

Developing number sense is an essential part of a kindergarten student’s education. It is important for them to understand basic numerical concepts, such as counting and recognizing numbers up to 10. Again and again as teachers we see students who have unfortunately slipped through the cracks in the early years and get to Grade 2 or 3 without a solid foundation of number sense. At the time, it feels like you are going over and over the same content, but students need to see and practise counting numbers in so many different forms!

As teachers of little learners, our goal is to provide students with a solid understanding of number concepts so that they are more readily able to learn and understand number patterns, place value and number concepts as they progress throughout their schooling.

Using activities like these help students develop their number sense. 

What is Trusting the Count?

Developing a sense of number is an important part of early childhood education and learning. Developing the ability to trust the count up to 10 helps young children build a strong foundation for more complex math concepts later on in life.

Trusting the count means that students can quickly identify how many items are in a group without counting each item one by one. They know there are 5 cookies there, they don’t need to count them. They see them and know straight away. Being able to subitize is central to being able to trusting the count. Trusting the count also relates to when students are counting on their fingers. They know a whole hand has 5 fingers, they don’t need to count it and can start counting from 5. They know the number of fingers is not going to change on their hands!

With practice, trusting the count also builds confidence and encourages students to take risks with their mathematical thinking.

Why Make It is the Perfect Game for You! 

Make It is the perfect game to help your students develop their ability to Trust the Count. By playing this game regularly, students will recognise numbers in many different forms with greater confidence and without needing to count every single object.

In this game, students will see numbers represented as:

– a word

– a number

– in a tens frame

– fingers

– cubes

– icypole sticks

– tally marks

– on a dice

– on dominoes

To Play:

Students will need a Make It worksheet and unifix blocks or cubes that they can connect together. 

Students then identify the number shown in each square and make a tower from the cubes to match that number. In the image below, I have the towers laying down so you can see. 

Students continue to make a tower with the number shown in each square until their whole game board is full. 

Next time you play, students can choose a different game board (there are 20 to choose from)! 

Available in Numbers to 10 (Mathful Learners or TPT) and Numbers to 20 (Mathful Learners or TPT).

Make It is the perfect game for your kindergarten classroom to help students develop their ability to trust the count. This interactive and engaging activity helps young learners practice counting, recognizing numbers, and making math connections come alive – all while having fun! Not only does Make It help children understand basic numerical concepts up to 10 or 20, but it also encourages them to take risks with their mathematical thinking. With its multiple representations of numbers such as words, fingers, cubes, tally marks and more – this game will build confidence in your students’ number sense skills that they can use throughout life. Try out Make It today!