Leprechaun Making 10

Making 10 is an important concept for early math learners.  It helps kids build a strong foundation of number concept and early addition.

Snag your set below and then hop over and grab our best-selling Number Formation Sheets in our shop!

Getting Ready

To prepare the making 10 activity, I first printed the making 10 mat and the pot of gold cards on white cardstock. (If you decided to print the black and white version, green cardstock would add a fun pop of color.)

I used my paper trimmer to cut out the cards and ran the mat and cards through the laminator for durability.

After I prepared all of the materials, I grabbed some gold coins that I had picked up from the Dollar Tree, a dry erase marker and an eraser.

Making 10

To begin, my students first picked one of the pot of gold cards.  The cards have gold coin arrangements from 0-10 so there are 11 pot of gold cards for students to choose from.

My kindergarteners counted the gold coins shown on the card and then counted that same number of gold coins on their making 10 mat.

In the example below, this student picked a pot of gold card and counted five gold coins.  The student then counted five gold coins on the ten frame.

The ten frame allowed students to easily count how many more coins they needed to make 10 because students could count the empty boxes on the ten frame.

After counting the five empty boxes on the ten frame, the student said, “Five and five more is 10” to her partner and recorded the number the missing five on the shamrock at the bottom of her mat.

Solving one card a time, students used their gold coins to solve each challenge in the stack.

Making 10 Extension Ideas

Another option for having students determine how many more to make 10 is for students to actually put the cold coins needed to make 10 on the mat.

In our example above, the student would have placed those missing five coins on the mat.

If you are looking for a way to differentiate this activity, you could also have your students record the equation for making 10 on a dry erase board.  Students would write 6 + 4 = 10 on the board if they were to record the equation.

Grab Your Download

Ready for some making 10 fun?!

Snag your set below and then hop over and grab our best-selling Number Formation Sheets in our shop!