Counting Sheep

Scripture: Genesis 13-14, 18-19

Learning Objectives:

  • Students will review the story of Abraham and Lot.
  • Students will learn Abraham and Lot had flocks of sheep.
  • Students will learn how to skip count by 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10.
  • Students will participate in an activity to practice skip counting.

Guiding Question: How can we skip count to get ready to learn how to multiply?

Materials: a large number of objects like pennies or other safe, small objects (100 objects per student)

Procedure: Review the story of Abraham and Lot. Explain to students how Abraham and Lot had to separate their families and flocks because they had gotten too large. Teach/review with students how to skip count by 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10. Give each students their own “flock” of one hundred sheep. Explain that one of the duties of a shepherd was to make sure he didn’t lose any sheep. Counting one sheep at a time would be a very slow way of counting a very large flock. Have students practice skip counting their flocks by various numbers. Make the activity more challenging by removing a random number of “sheep” from each flock. Have students skip count and see if the final total is correct.

Additional Questions:

  • How does knowing how to skip count get us ready to learn multiplication?

Supplemental Activity: Have more advanced students research and find the basics of multiplication. How is multiplication the same as skip counting? How is it different? Which way is quicker? Have them give examples of when skip counting is a better choice and when multiplication is better.

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