Ten Board: Names of the Tens
The Ten Board (Seguin Board B) gives the tens their names — twenty, thirty, forty, all the way to ninety — and shows that each one is simply that many ten-bars. It follows the Teen Board and opens the door to counting to 99.
Materials
- Seguin Ten Board (Board B): two wooden boards printed 10, 20, 30 … 90 — or nine index cards with the tens written large in black marker
- 45 golden ten-bars — or 45 bundles of ten (ten dried beans in a small bag, ten craft sticks rubber-banded, or ten straws bundled) so each “ten” is one graspable thing; nine are enough if you build one row at a time
- A work mat, tray, or tea towel to define the workspace
No materials at home? Use the virtual Ten Board (Seguin B).
Before this lesson
Aims
Direct
- Learn the names of the tens: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety
- Connect each name with its quantity (that many ten-bars) and its written symbol (10, 20, … 90)
Indirect
- Preparation for counting to 99 and for the Hundred Board
- A first feel for place value: the tens digit counts whole tens, and the zero holds the units place
- Preparation for skip counting by ten, the seed of multiplication
Presentation
- 1 Invite your child to carry the boards and the ten-bars to the mat with you. Lay one golden ten-bar at the top of the mat and count its beads together, touching each one.This is ten.
- 2 Lay a second ten-bar beside the first. Point to the pair.Two tens. We call this twenty.
- 3 Add a third bar and name it, then a fourth. Let your child count the bars each time before you give the name.Three tens — thirty. Four tens — forty.
- 4 Give a three-period lesson on the new names. First name each quantity yourself, then ask your child to act: “Show me thirty.” “Point to twenty.” Mix up the piles and ask again. Only when that is easy, point to a pile and ask what it is called.Show me thirty. … Now point to forty. … What is this one called?
- 5 Bring out the boards. Run your finger down the column of printed numbers and read them slowly together.Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety.
- 6 Now marry quantity to symbol: ask your child to lay the right number of ten-bars beside each row of the board — one bar next to 10, two bars next to 20, and so on down the board. A full set of 45 bars makes a staircase down the whole board; with only nine bars, build one row at a time and clear it before the next.Can you put twenty next to the 20?
- 7 On another day, review with the three-period lesson again, working further down the board until all nine tens are known. Keep sessions short — two or three new names at a time is plenty.Yesterday we learned twenty and thirty. Today, let’s meet fifty.
Points of interest
- Hearing “two” hiding inside “twenty” and “three” inside “thirty” — the names almost give themselves away
- The zeros marching down the board in a perfectly straight line
- Counting all the beads of four ten-bars one by one and landing exactly on forty
- The staircase of bead bars growing by exactly one bar per row
Control of error
- Every quantity can be recounted bead by bead — a ten-bar always has exactly ten, so a miscount shows itself
- The bars laid beside the board grow by one bar per row; a skipped or doubled ten breaks the visible staircase
- The printed numerals let the child check a name against its symbol without an adult saying “wrong”
Vocabulary
- ten
- twenty
- thirty
- forty
- fifty
- sixty
- seventy
- eighty
- ninety
- ten-bar
Variations
- Play the distance game: keep the ten-bars across the room, name a ten (“Bring me sixty”), and have your child fetch the right number of bars to build it — holding the name in mind the whole trip
- Point to rows out of order (“What is this one?”) once the sequence is solid
- Have your child close their eyes while you hide one pile of bars; they open their eyes, count what is missing, and name it
Extensions
- Count by tens out loud while doing something rhythmic — climbing stairs, clapping, or setting out spoons in groups of ten
- Hunt for tens around the house: a ten-pack of crayons, ten eggs left in a carton, dimes as “ten cents”
- Say the tens backward — ninety, eighty, seventy… — as a car game
Follow-up work (pencil & paper)
- Print a teens-and-tens practice sheet: your child writes the numeral for each tens name and draws the matching ten-bars.Printable: Teens & Tens
- Have your child copy the column 10, 20, 30 … 90 down the left edge of a piece of paper, saying each name aloud while writing it.
- Say a tens name at the kitchen table (“seventy”) and have your child write the numeral; then swap roles — they say a name, you write it, and they check your work.
What comes next
When the names of the tens are secure, move to “Counting to 99,” where unit cards slide over the zeros and your child builds every number in between — 21, 22, 23 … — exchanging ten loose beads for a ten-bar at each new ten. After that comes the Hundred Board.
Next in this strand: Counting to 99