Bundles of ten

If we have 23 things, that's a lot to count one-by-one.

So we bundle them up:

🟦🟦 + 🟧🟧🟧

Two bundles of ten = 20. Three loose ones = 3.
Altogether: 23.

The 2 is in the "tens place". The 3 is in the "ones place". That's why we call it place value — the position of the digit changes what it's worth.

One more, one less

Numbers go up and down by one all the time.

23 → one more → 24
23 → one less → 22

It's easy when the ones place changes. But what about 29?

29 + 1 = 30. The 9 ones turn into a whole new ten!
And 30 – 1 = 29. The ten "breaks back" into 9 ones.

Comparing numbers

Which is bigger: 34 or 43?

Look at the tens first:

• 34 has 3 tens. That's 30.
• 43 has 4 tens. That's 40.

40 is more than 30, so 43 is bigger.

34 < 43

The symbol < means "less than". The pointed end points to the smaller number. Or imagine it's a crocodile's mouth — it always wants to eat the bigger fish!

Skip counting

In Year 2 you'll learn to skip count. That means jumping in twos, fives or tens instead of ones.

In 2s: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12...
In 5s: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30...
In 10s: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60...

Skip counting is the bridge to times tables. Once you can count in 2s, you already know your 2 times table. Once you can count in 5s, you know your 5 times table. Pretty cool!