This is an activity for helping young children understand the structure of the numbers between 10 and 20.

See note below on the difficulities some children have with the 'teens'.

The cards are cut into separate squares and rectangles and can be arranged in various ways such as 3 (+) 10 (=)13, or into squares showing how the numbers from 11 - 19 are structured.

For a game using the same structure see The Teens Game in the Games pages.

Note on the numbers between 10 and 20

Children often experience more trouble with these numbers than other decades up to 100. English speakers have a particular problem because of the irregularity of the language used. "Fourteen" can so easily be muddled with "forty" so that many will write "41" instead of "14".

I have found that some children with problems respond well to using the counting form Catherine Stern's 1940's book "Children discover Arithmetic". I call this "Funny Counting". The numbers between 9 and 22 go "onety, onety-one, onety-two ..... onety-nine, twoty, twoty-one..." The numbers get quite regular with this counting at 60!

Go back to beginning of the activity.