Your dino-loving preschooler or kindergarten will have a roaring good time practicing their number with these free printable dinosaur ten frames!
These free dino ten frames feature the numbers 1-10 with correct number formation graphics, words to trace, and colorful dino images. Even better – there are both English and Spanish language versions available.
Because we are a bilingual household, I’m adding more Spanish language resources for preschoolers as my daughter continues to grow and learn. If your child is learning Spanish, please stop by this post for your free printable Spanish alphabet tracing pages.
If your child isn’t learning Spanish, that’s fine. The sets in English and Spanish can be used independently. If you want to use the Spanish cards, but aren’t sure how to pronounce the words, Spanish Dict has a fantastic resource for pronouncing numbers.
If your little learner loves dinosaurs, be sure to grab these additional free dino themed printables while you're here:
How to print and use ten frames
These cards are simple to prepare and an easy to use, but powerful, learning tool.
Materials needed
- Free printable ten frames (download link is lower in the post)
- Cardstock or paper
- I recommend this 32 lb paper for printables. It’s heavier than “normal” printer paper and has much better images. See a comparison of several papers and cardstocks in this post about the best paper for printables.
- Laminator and pouches
- Optional but helpful. Cards are reusable and easy to clean when you laminate them.
- Scissors or paper trimmer
- A heavy duty paper cutter is best for laminated cards, but I’ve used this paper trimmer for laminated pages, too.
- Small manipulatives to use as counters and tongs or tweezers, optional
- We have these counting and sorting dinosaurs
- For an added fine motor challenge, have your child place the counters using large plastic tweezers or bamboo tongs.
- Do a dot markers also work for filling in frames, if they’re not laminated and you don’t plan to reuse them.
How to print and prepare dino ten frames
First, download your printables. Look for the link further down in the post – there’s an image that says “click here to download.”
Print the pages you want. The English pages are all together, followed by the Spanish cards.
Laminate the pages, if you’re using a laminator. Laminating first means you only cut once!
Cut out the cards along the lines. You can skip this step if you're prefer, but I recommend cutting the cards out.
Use and enjoy!
How to use ten frames
Although ten frames are frequently used with kindergarteners, preschool and pre-k learners can use them to practice counting and numbers, too.(Especially with some adult help.) They may not be ready to trace the written words with a pencil, but can trace them with a finger, color them in, or "write" them with play-dough snakes.
What are ten frames?
Ten frames are a 5×2 grid of 10 equally sized squares.
Working with ten frames can help your child understand numbers better and truly learn how to count, not just recite numbers in order.
Ten frames can also help your child with subitizing, the ability to quickly recognize quantities without counting each one individually. (If you see two apples, you don’t think “one, two” to yourself – you just know there are two. This is subitizing.)
Ten frames are also helpful for teaching addition and subtraction. It’s easy to point at the frame and demonstrate that 6 is 4 less than 10, for example.
There are several ways to fill in a ten frame with counters. One of the most common, and easiest for young learners to master, is filling in the top row of five boxes in order before moving on to the bottom row. This page from the University of Cambridge has several helpful suggestions on ways to use a ten frame and different methods of filling one it.
Using these ten frame cards to improve number sense with one-to-one correspondence is easy. Have your child place a manipulative on each image on the card, then immediately cover a box in the ten frame. Covering each image as they work can help young children remember which pictures they’ve counted and which they haven’t counted yet.
When I demonstrate counting and using a ten frame with my daughter, I always work from the upper left corner and go left to right. This is the same as reading order for both English and Spanish, so it helps reinforce literacy skills, too.
How awesome are these counting dinosaurs? My daughter LOVES them. They keep her happily busy for a very long time because she sorts them by color (they come with matching cups) and loves dumping them back and forth.
Free dinosaur ten frame printable download
Please note that the artwork in these printables is copyright by DigitalArtsi and is used under license. Thank you, Jane, for your beautiful artwork and generous licensing.
Like all preschool printables on The Artisan Life, these are for personal and single classroom use (including use with scouts groups, therapy clients, homeschool co-ops, etc.).
You are not licensed to redistribute the digital files or printouts to other teachers/parents for use with their children or students. Instead, please refer your friends and coworkers to this page so they can download their own copies.
If you agree to these terms, click below:
I hope your little learner enjoys these dino ten frames as much as mine does!
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