Felt "skip counting" board

For those of you with preschool/kindergarden aged kiddos, you know all about the world of learning numbers.  My son is one of those learning-obsessed people who laser focuses on something until he's figured it all out.  Because of that, he quickly earned his status in the "100 club" (counting to 100) and I wasn't sure where to go next.  Then I heard about skip counting.  I found some worksheets online but wanted something that we could use over and over again (and even later when his little sister learns her numbers) so I created this:

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We are big fans of flannelboards and have everything from cars to farm to road construction to money!  So why not work on our numbers that way too?  This is easy to make and helps teach children how to:

- count numbers up to 100
- skip count by 10's
- skip count by 5's
- skip count by 2's (odds and evens)

There's only a few materials you need:

- felt by the yard (for background) I get mine at Joann Fabrics.
- other felt (sheets or by the yard) for the number pieces.
- Heat Transfer Vinyl (or iron on numbers)



I cut all the felt shapes out by hand and then cut the numbers with my Silhouette Cameo.  If you have a Cricut or other cutting machine that work work fine.  No cutting machine?  Just buy a pack of iron on numbers instead!


Here's the important part: Make sure you find ways to differentiate so that you can clearly tell what numbers belong in the 10's, 5's and 2's categories.  It's tricky because the 10's are also 5's and 2's so it has to cover all three!  Here's what I did:

Odd numbers were white,
Even numbers were tan,
Then I cut all the 10's in squares (the rest were circles)
All 5's were numbered in blue (all others in red)

Using different background colors, text colors and shapes allows for this to work.  For example, now the number 20 can easily be identified as an even number, a multiple of 5 and a multiple of 10 all at a quick glance!  Easy peasy.



One thing I would change:
I definitely recommend hanging your background felt on something solid. Ours is hanging on sort of bar stand and because it's not solid underneath, it's hard to press each piece onto the felt.  I'll be moving ours to it's permanent hanging against the wall here soon.   The benefit of the pieces not being pressed on very well is that it is pretty fun to knock them all off onto the floor.

I mean really, look how much joy it bring him to totally destroy all of that!

Whatever you do, have fun.  Learning is an exciting journey that you and your kiddos can take together.  Just make sure you don't put too much pressure on either of you and HAVE FUN!