The ten frames were introduced today in class and this is the first time I have heard about it and how it have been amazingly used to teach young children about whole numbers.
Benefits that I have learnt using ten frames for children at the stage of learning numbers were;
- Concrete – in manipulating one concrete material (the bean) and making ten literally by placing one bean in one frame (one-to-one correspondence)
- Visual – children are able to keep track of counting and see that a full ten frame makes 10 and anything less than that is less than 10. Thus cultivating place value (1 in relation to 10).
- Arranging and rearranging of the concrete materials will not change the number (quantity) and thus build up children’s number conservation.
- As the activity moves on, children can also spot number bonds readily within the ten frames.
Figure 1: Getting children to spot “how many more” to make 10.
Figure 2: Children can eventually move on to pictorial and making number bonds.
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