Counting Tally Marks to 20 Worksheets for Kindergarten

Home › Kindergarten › Math

Download PDF worksheetAnswer key (PDF)Worksheet + answer key (2 pages)

Prints on one US Letter page; the answer key is a separate page. Print at 100% / "Actual size" on US Letter paper. Free for personal and classroom use. Version 1 of 10. Choose another version.

Grade KMathData & GraphsCCSS K.CC.B.5CCSS K.CC.A.3

Skill: Counting tally marks to 20 and showing numbers with tally marks

Preview of the Counting Tally Marks to 20 printable worksheet
Page 1 preview (US Letter PDF)

Teaching tips and what to try next

Suited to kindergartners who count to 20 out loud and can write most numerals, even if a few are reversed. Keeping a tally of something your child cares about, like jumps on one foot or birds at a feeder, makes the bundles of five feel useful. Next, count dots in Count to 20 With Ten-Frames or record counts in a chart with Sort and Count Shapes.

10 versions, each with its own answer key

Same skill and layout, a fresh set of problems in every version, so children can keep practicing without repeating a page. Problems are not repeated between versions unless a skill has only a small number of possible problems (for example, the addition facts within 10).

Download all 10 versions (one PDF)All 10 answer keys (PDF)

Related worksheets

About this worksheet

Tally marks are one of the first ways children record a count by themselves. They also teach a big idea in a small package: grouping by fives makes counting faster. This kindergarten worksheet uses tally marks to practice counting to 20 and writing the numbers.

The first nine problems show a set of tally marks, from 1 to 20 marks. Every full bundle of five is drawn the usual way, with four upright lines and one line across them, and any extra marks stand alone after the bundles. Children count the marks and write how many in the box. In the last row, the job is turned around: the page gives a number, and children draw tally marks to show it inside a dotted box. Each of the ten versions has a new mix of numbers and its own answer key.

How to use it: before the worksheet, make tally marks together for something real, such as how many times a ball bounces or how many cars go by the window. Show your child how the fifth mark crosses the other four. When counting a bundle, encourage your child to say "five" for the whole bundle and then count on, like "five, ten, eleven, twelve," instead of counting every line. For the drawing row, it helps to draw the bundles first and the extra marks last.

The answer key shows every number and the tally marks for the last row. For more counting, try our Count to 20 With Ten-Frames worksheet. To sort objects into groups and count them, try our Sort and Count Shapes worksheet.