Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term v5 - Grade R

Lesson Video

This page supports the lesson note with a companion video and a short classroom-ready summary.

For class groups and homework, share this lesson page so learners also get the summary, objectives, and full lesson context.

Performance objectives

• Count forwards from 1 to 10.
• Count backwards from 10 to 1.
• Count up to 10 objects correctly.
• Understand that the last number counted is the total.
• Know which number comes before or after another.

Lesson summary

This week's focus is on building a foundational understanding of numbers from 0 to 10 by practising counting forwards and backwards. This skill is a cornerstone of early mathematical development and is essential for all future learning in number sense, operations, and problem-solving. In the South African context, this skill is used daily. Learners use it when counting out coins to buy a snack at the spaza shop, sharing sweets with friends to make sure it's fair, counting players for a game of kgati (skipping rope) or soccer, or helping a family member count items like potatoes or mealies when preparing a meal.

Lesson notes

This section explains the core ideas learners will engage with. The focus is on using concrete, multi-sensory methods to make these abstract concepts understandable for Grade R learners.

Concept 1: Counting Forwards (Ascending Order) Counting forwards means saying the numbers in their correct order, starting from a smaller number and going to a larger number. Each number is one more than the one before it.

Explanation: We can think of counting forwards as climbing up a ladder or walking up a flight of stairs. Each step you take goes up to the next number. It’s about things getting more. When we count our fingers, we start at one and go up: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,

1

0. This is the natural order of numbers that we use to find out 'how many'.

Worked example

Scenario: A teacher shows the learners a picture of a Protea flower with 8 petals.

Teacher's instruction: "Let's count the petals on our beautiful national flower. We must touch each petal once so we don't get lost."

Step-by-step:

The teacher points to the first petal and says aloud with the class, "One".

She moves her finger to the next petal and says, "Two".

She continues this for all the petals: "Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight."

Why and How: "We counted forwards, starting from

1. We said one number for each petal. The last number we said was

8. This means there are 8 petals on the flower. This is called cardinality – the last number tells us how many!"

Concept 2: Counting Backwards (Descending Order)

Counting backwards means saying the numbers in reverse order, starting from a larger number and going down to a smaller number. Each number is one less than the one before it.

Explanation: We can think of counting backwards as coming down a slide or a rocket launching. For a rocket, we count down... 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BLAST OFF! It’s about things getting less. If you have a bunch of grapes and you eat them one by one, the number of grapes you have left goes down.

Worked

Example:

Scenario: Learners have 10 blocks on their mat.

Teacher's instruction: "We are going to pack our blocks away. Let's count backwards from 10 as we put each block in the box."

Step-by-step:

The teacher and learners say "Ten" and put one block in the box. Now there are 9 blocks left.

They say "Nine" and put another block in the box. Now there are 8 blocks left.

They continue this process: "Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One."

After saying "One", the last block goes in the box. Now there are 0 blocks on the mat.

Why and How: "We started with 10 and each time we took one away, the number got smaller. This is counting backwards. It helps us understand subtraction later on!"

Guided Practice (With Solutions)

Question 1: The Bead String

Task: The teacher gives each small group a string with 10 large beads on it, all pushed to one side. "Let's count the beads by moving them one by one to the other side of the string."

Solution and

Commentary:

The teacher guides the learners to slide the first bead while saying "1".

They slide the second bead while saying "2".

This continues until all 10 beads are moved: "3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10."

Commentary: "Well done! By moving each bead as we said a number, we made sure we counted every single one. This is called one-to-one correspondence. We know there are 10 beads because 10 was our last number."