Skip counting with 2 is a really important skill. I'm sure you can probably recall times you have used it recently.
>>scroll down for a freebie to help teach this skill
Once children learn this skill they can apply it to counting everyday options such as shoes, cutlery, wings, and feet.
If you do not own bead chains use what you have. Here I am using the bead bars and tiles from the hundred board to introduce the square of 2. The square of 2 is shown alongside the short bead chain.
After students have become proficient with the square of 2, the next piece of obvious equipment would be the long bead chain of 2 which makes a cube totalling 8.
Learning how to count past 8 is a great skill and there isn't a traditional piece of equipment that is done to do this unless you are using the multiplication bead board which is used to show multiplication equations. I introduce these progressively so the child does not have every single number up 100. First I introduce numbers to 20, then 50, and lastly 100.
I made these skip counting in two caterpillars. Again I introduce these progressively.
Counting backwards and starting at numbers aside from zero or one hundred or fifty is a great way to help students generalise the concept and not just know it by rote. You can use tiles from the hundred board to teach this concept. Pick a handful of multiples of two and have the student lay them out from the largest to smallest.
I use puzzles as a hands on way to cement these concepts.
I don't introduce the clip cards until we've done lots of the above.
With clip cards students can place a peg or counter on the correct answer and flip over the card to see whether they are correct.
Transferring skip counting knowledge to place value and equations is really helpful for students to see how this knowledge can apply to traditional equations. As this involves transferring and generalising knowledge I wait for students to show some understanding that when skip counting up or down you are adding or subtracting.
After this you can show the child how this knowledge applies to the multiplication board.
If you don't want to reinvent the wheel I have a freebie set with some skip counting in two activities here.
You can get the full 100+ page set here:
