Apple Ten Frames

Looking for a motivating way to practice counting to twenty or early addition? Students will get a kick out of this crafty apple ten frame activity. Roll the die, stamp the apples and write the numbers below! It’s a fun math center they’ll ask to play over and over again.

And speaking of playing over and over again, check out our awesome 15 Editable Math Fact Games in our shop!

Math is such an important topic for kids to learn and practice. It’s a subject that builds on itself so missing one piece of the puzzle can cause significant problems later on.

That’s why I love to give my kids several strategies for solving math problems.  Knowing multiple ways of finding the answer improves their understanding and makes math easier in the long run.

Ten frames are a great visual math strategy for learning numbers to 20 and solving addition problems because students can quickly see the numbers by noticing the rows of five and groups of ten.

Getting Ready

We didn’t have to do much to prepare for this ten frame activity.

First, we found some paints: red, green and yellow to match the color of apples.

We grabbed cotton swabs to use as our apple stamper but the eraser end of a pencil is also a good size for the activity.

Then, I cut out the apple cards. There are two sets of cards and pages for this activity – one for counting up to 20 and one for addition within 20.

Apple Ten Frame Activity

Although the counting to 20 sheet is a great way to review ten frames and teen numbers, since we’ve been working with ten frames a lot lately, my kids were eager to take on the challenge of solving the addition sheet instead.

They flipped over the first card. It read 13 +7 so they grabbed red paint to stamp 13 apples in the ten frames and switched to green paint to stamp seven more apples.

Using two different colors of paint helped them visualize both parts of the math problem.

Then, the kids grabbed a red and green pencil and wrote the equation as a number sentence with the same colors.

They happily flipped over the next card in their pile and continued started stamping more apples

My kids enjoyed using the paint on a math worksheet and I was excited that they were working on math facts.  It was a great way to practice addition and add another tool to their list of math strategies.

Grab Your Download

Ready to stamp some apples too?! Click the blue button below to snag your free ten frame sheets and then hop over to grab our 15 Editable Math Fact Games!