1. Teacher holds up one card at a time and asks
   How many dots are there?
   How do you know? [E.g. for seven “There’s five and two more”]
   Students chorus back the number of dots and then the teacher goes around the group asking for individual responses.

2. Teacher changes the focus to quick recognition of the patterns, and repeats the above asking
   How many dots are there?

3. Repeat above asking
   How many gaps are there?

4. Repeat above asking
   How many more do we need to get ten?

5. Initially, teacher also asks How do you know?

6. Teacher holds up cards one at a time and says:
   I’m looking at seven [for example], what do I see?

Broadening Activities

• Teacher spreads two sets of cards out face up.  Students find two cards of different colours that “match”, or make ten.  This can then be developed into a memory game with the cards face down.

Note: tens frames are not the ideal piece of equipment for moving students towards the counting-on stage because the counters can still be seen and counted.  Other equipment is more suitable.