Skip Counting: Jumping by 2s, 5s, and 10s

Imagine you have 10 pairs of shoes to count — that's 20 shoes! Instead of counting 1, 2, 3, 4... all the way to 20, you can count faster by jumping: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10... all the way to 20. This shortcut is called skip counting, and it's a trick real mathematicians use every day.

You will learn how to skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. You will learn why skip counting is faster than counting by 1s. You will learn to use skip counting to count groups of things, like fingers and toes. You will learn how skip counting helps you learn multiplication later.

When you count by 2s, you say every other number: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. Try it with your fingers — hold up 2 fingers, then 2 more (4), then 2 more (6). If you have 5 pairs of socks in a drawer, you can skip count by 2s to find out you have 10 socks total, without counting each sock one at a time.

Counting by 5s sounds like this: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. A clock's minute marks are grouped by 5s — that's why when the big hand points to the 2, it means 10 minutes have passed (5, 10). If you have 4 hands worth of fingers (your hand plus 3 friends' hands), skip counting by 5s gets you to 20 fingers fast: 5, 10, 15, 20.

Counting by 10s is the fastest jump: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. If a bag has 10 crayons and you have 6 bags, you can skip count by 10s to find the total: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 crayons, instead of counting all 60 one by one.