Skip Counting

I was looking at the math book that came with the Christopherus Second Grade Curriculum and there was a page that showed a very clever, visual way to teach skip counting. It said to draw circles, with the numbers 0-9 marked around the circle. The child then draws a line to each number they count, and different designs are then made for each number they skip count by. For instance counting by 4's produces a perfect 5 cornered star.
Instead of drawing these circles over and over, I decided to make a permanent one out of wood.


The first step of this project was actually the hardest, which was marking out 10 equally spaced spots around the circle. As you can see from all the pencil marks, I had some unsuccessful first tries.


Next, using a 7/32" drill bit, drill a hole 1/4 of an inch from the circle's edge on each line.

Sand until both sides of the board are smooth and all the pencil marks are gone.

Put a drop of strong glue in each hole and insert a wooden peg in each hole.






Number the pegs from 0 to 9. This can be done with a permanent marker or with number stickers.


Tie a long piece of yarn to the "0" peg and it's ready to use.

To Use, wrap the yarn around each peg as you say the number.

Counting by ones will look like this:



Skip counting by 2's:



Skip Counting by 3's:



Skip counting by 4's:



Skip counting by 5's:





Blaze thinks this is a great toy, but not for the reason I intended. The first time he used it to count by ones, he kept going after he reached 10 and went around and round until the yarn was all gone. Then declared that he had made a wrestling ring and wanted to use it for thumb wrestling.

"One, two, three, four,
I declare a thumb war!"