Planned · Counting and place value

Cairn Count™

For ages 3 to 6 · Place value: seeing a two-digit number as tens and ones, the foundation under all later arithmetic.

Age 3Age 4Age 5Age 6

Illustration for Cairn Count

Counting all the way to a hundred, and the big idea that ten ones make a ten.

The science

After counting small sets, children learn that our number system is built on tens: that 34 is three tens and four ones. Grasping this base-ten structure is one of the most important steps in early math, and it is what later makes adding larger numbers make sense. Cairn Count builds it with grouping, not memorized counting.

Base-ten understanding, seeing two-digit numbers as composed of tens and ones, is foundational and often under-taught; children who build it reason far more flexibly about larger numbers (National Research Council, 2009; Fuson, 1990).

Bundling objects into tens and using ten-frames makes the structure visible, supporting place value over rote counting (Common Core progressions for Number and Operations in Base Ten).

Cairn Count moves from counting to 100, to grouping into tens, to reading a two-digit number as tens and ones.

The research, cited
  1. National Research Council (2009). Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood. National Academies Press.
  2. Fuson, K. C. (1990). Conceptual structures for multiunit numbers. Cognition and Instruction, 7(4), 343-403.
  3. Common Core Standards Writing Team (2015). Progressions: Number and Operations in Base Ten. University of Arizona.

By age, and how to do it at home

Here is what is developing at each age, what Cairn Count does about it, and a way to build the same skill at home. The home column is the real point: even if your child never opens the app, you can do this. The best early learning has always been a parent and a child and a little knowing-what-to-try.

6years old
What's developing

Counts to 100, counts by tens, and starts to see a teen number as ten and some more.

What the game does

Count and bundle objects into tens, then read two-digit numbers as tens and ones.

Try this at home

Count a big pile of small things by making groups of ten. Pennies, beans, blocks, anything.

No reviews yet, on purpose. When real children have actually played it, their reactions go here. We do not buy reviews, run review farms, or invent five-star quotes. That this is unusual tells you something about the rest of the shelf.
Cairn Count

In the workshop.

This game is on the bench, built one at a time and only shipped when it clears all six of our promises. The science and the at-home guide above work today, with or without the app. Want to know when it lands? hello@playcairn.com.

See the whole library

The pedagogy behind every Cairn game is written in plain language and cited. Questions, or a researcher who wants to argue with us? hello@playcairn.com.