Number Line to 50: Every Tick Is Worth Five

The ticks on this 1st grade number-lines page are not ones. Each step along the line is worth five, so the whole run from 0 to 50 needs only ten marks, and just three numbers are printed underneath: 0, 25 and 50. Three lines fill the page and two orange arrows point down at unnamed ticks on each of them, with an empty dashed box waiting above every arrow. Six answers altogether. To name an arrow the child counts on in fives from whichever printed number is nearest, saying thirty, thirty-five, forty rather than stepping one at a time.

Changing what a tick is worth is a bigger idea than lengthening the line. Until now every mark has meant one, and a child who keeps that assumption reads the third tick as three instead of fifteen. The page makes the assumption visible: every answer is a multiple of five, so a one-at-a-time count produces a number that does not fit the printed landmarks and the mistake shows itself. The 25 in the middle is deliberately not a ten, which stops the child leaning on decade counting and leaves the five-step chant to do the work.

Print the PDF free and let the child touch each tick while saying the fives out loud; the chant is what carries the count, and hearing it tells you whether it is secure. This is the shorter of the two counting in fives pages. The to 100 version keeps five-sized ticks but doubles the range and prints a label every ten, so the landmarks come round more often. The counting in tens page makes each tick worth ten instead, and the number walls page is where fives like these get added together.