Talk About It: The Number 5

The big idea: Five means one more than four, and one whole hand.

We've counted up to 4. Today we add one more and get 5. Five is the easiest number to carry around, because it's right on your hand: five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot.

Questions to ask

• "Can you show me five fingers? How many on your other hand?"

• "How many toes are on one foot? Let's count!"

• "Here are four crackers. If I add one more, how many now?"

• "Can you jump five times? Clap five times?"

Show it in one minute

Trace your child's hand on paper and count each finger out loud: "One, two, three, four, five!" Then write a big 5 in the air together: "Down, around, then a hat on top."

Keep it going

Make it a dinosaur count all day: five stomps, five roars and five dinosaurs lined up for bed.

Want to learn more?

• Help Your Child Develop Early Math Skills, from Zero to Three

• Math Talk with Infants and Toddlers, from NAEYC

• Helping Your Child See and Show Mathematical Ideas, from NAEYC

Shop these items

Find the books and supplies from this week in one place. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

• Today's book: Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton

• From our set: Wooden number puzzle

• Shop everything for Week 5: Dinosaurs

• Starter supplies: the basics we use most weeks

• See every week in our Amazon storefront

More for this week: see all our Dinosaur activities, Letter E activities and Number 5 activities.