Number Sense Teaching Resources

Browse printable worksheets, hands-on math center activities and more teaching resources designed to teach number sense in the elementary classroom.

Developing number sense is an important building block for elementary math students and unlocks a deeper understanding of numbers and their relationships. These curriculum-aligned resources were created by teachers with teachers — and students — in mind to help build those skills in ways that engage and excite students about numbers!

Want to learn more about number sense? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a definition of number sense, how to assess this important math skill and more!

What Is Number Sense?

In the most basic sense (no pun intended), number sense refers to a student's intuitive understanding of numbers and their relationships. It includes the ability to estimate and compare quantities, understand numerical patterns and relationships and make reasonable judgments about the accuracy of calculations.

When students show an understanding of numbers, their size, relationships, and how they are affected by the four mathematical operations, what they're really showing is their number sense.

In an educational setting, building number sense is closely related to other foundational skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking and logical reasoning. As our students get older, it will become a crucial skill for daily life they will use to manage finances, calculate time and make decisions based on numerical information.

Teach Starter Teacher Tip: Although the names may seem interchangeable, it's worth noting that number sense is not the same as mathematical fluency or memorization of algorithms, but rather a deep understanding of the underlying concepts and relationships between numbers.

When Does Number Sense Develop?

There is no one grade level when we're teaching students number sense — instead, it's something that continues to develop and become more sophisticated as students progress through elementary school.

Research suggests that babies as young as 6 months old can distinguish between small and large numbers of objects, and by preschool, students are already working on number sense as they begin to learn counting and one-to-one correspondence. At this level, they're also beginning to develop an understanding of quantity and relative size — both key to overall number sense.

Number sense will continue to grow in elementary school as students become more adept at recognizing and using numbers to solve problems, and it continues into high school and — for many students — into college.

Assessing Number Sense

When we assess students for their number sense skills, there are certain mathematical concepts that they should have under their belts. These include:

• Ability to Recognize Missing Numbers in a Pattern —When kids can fill in missing numbers in a sequence, they're showing that they can make connections between numbers and develop an understanding of the relationships between them.
• Ability to Use Mental Math — Students with number sense can use mental math to solve problems involving the four basic operations.
• Ability to Engage in Systematic Counting — Children who can count systematically can more easily understand the relationships between numbers, including number magnitude, patterns, and sequences.
• Ability to Subitize Numbers — Students can use visual clustering skills to instantly recognize how many objects are in a group without physically counting them.
• Ability to Relate Numbers to Real-World Problems —For example, a student may understand that "3" means "three objects" or "three days" or "three dollars."
• Ability to Compose and Decompose Numbers — Students use number sense when they break down numbers and put them back together. For example, a student who can break down the number 10 into 8 and 2, then add the two back together to again make 10, is using number sense.