Learning to count by twos, fives, tens, fifties, and hundreds will make basic arithmetic easier for your child. Before you begin playing, learn the skip-counting jingle and its rhythmic accompaniment:
Directions
(slap knees)
(clap hands)
(snap left hand)
(snap right hand)
Counting,
counting,
1, 2,
3.
That's too
easy,
can't you
see?
Count in-
stead by
twos or
threes, or
By the
number
named by
me.
The players sit in a circle on the floor.
To begin, they recite the jingle together while slapping, clapping, and snapping as shown above.
All the players continue to slap, clap, and snap as the first player declares a number to count by (for example, ten).
The player to his left then must say the next number in the series (in this case, twenty).
Play continues around the circle.
Each player must say the next number in the series during one slap-clap-snap-snap pattern.
If a player is stumped or says the wrong number, he must drop out.
To resume the game, the remaining players recite the jingle again and declare a new number.
The last player remaining after all the others have dropped out is the winner.