Maths KS1: Adding from 1 to 20

Primary Resources > Maths KS1 > Counting with Rodd 2

Rodd has a bad cold and is at home bored, so he looks out of his window and counts the cars on a bridge.

Realising that he needs to count more than 10, he has the idea of making an unusual abacus that goes up to 20, and uses toy cars instead of balls.

He grabs a washing line and creates his ‘carabacus’ and invites the children to count ‘one more car’ each time, from 16.

Then Rodd uses a toilet roll with numbers on as a number track to show how it can be used to find out ‘how many’ cars he has,without counting them.

Then Rodd invites the children to create, in pairs, their own abacus.

This is from the series: Counting with Rodd Counting with Rodd 2

Teacher Notes

Students could create model car parks using toilet roll, where each perforated section represents a ‘parking bay’.

Working in pairs, students could make paper tracks with spaces counting up to 20.

Using a dice, with clear plastic pockets, students could slip in three pieces of paper, three saying ‘move 1 space' and three saying ‘Miss a turn’.

Students could take a toy car each, throw the dice in turn and move their cars along the track accordingly.

Students could take turns to pick a card with a number from 11 to 20 from a small bag.

They could put their hand into another bag and pick a card saying, for example, ‘add 1 more’ and use their paper number track or numbered toilet roll to work out the total.

Curriculum Notes

This clip is relevant for teaching Maths at KS1 in England, Foundation Phase in Wales and Early and 1st Level in Scotland. Also Foundation and KS1 in Northern Ireland.