Tally Marks 1-10 Task Box

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 22 pages, 150 type-in fields

• 12 tally-mark cards across 3 levels (4 cards each), every card a group of tally strokes in the standard classroom convention — four vertical marks, a fifth diagonal stroke across a completed group of five
• Every card twice: accent-colored strokes for a laminated classroom box and black-on-white ink-saver strokes for the photocopier — plain drawn strokes, no picture library either way
• 2 tally strips (color and ink-saver), numerals 1 to 10 in order, each beside its own tally group and its number word
• An answer key listing every card by level, its count, and the numerals printed on it
• A task box data sheet (16 rows: date, level, cards used, cards correct, cards given, percent, help given, initials)
• A percent graph, 14 sessions across, with a level box under each session
• A filled example — an invented student, 8 sessions, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family practice page with six of the same cards and a short reference strip
• A phrase bank: 25 lines in 6 groups (spoken lines for running the box, written starters for the note afterward)
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

A task box built around reading tally marks — the groups-of-five counting convention most classroom sort-and-count sets skip in favor of one-to-one picture counting. It comes with the same data sheet, graph and phrase bank as the rest of the collection, so this practice turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

Three Levels, And The Counts Move With Them

• Level 1 — 4 cards, two numerals to choose from. Counts sit at the LOW end of the box (1-4), and the wrong choice is always at least three away from the true count, so the first cards are nearly impossible to get wrong.
• Level 2 — 4 cards, three numerals to choose from. Counts sit in the MIDDLE of the box (4-7), and every wrong choice stays at least two away from the true count — never adjacent, but closer than Level 1's distractor.
• Level 3 — 4 cards, four numerals to choose from. Counts sit at the HIGH end of the box (7-10), and at least one wrong choice sits exactly one away from the true count — the near-miss a child lands on after miscounting a single stroke.

Moving up a level changes the count range and the number of choices at the same time, so a student cannot answer by card position alone. Nothing on a card says its level except a dot code in the corner (one, two or three dots), so a mixed-up box sorts itself back together.

NO PICTURES, ON PURPOSE — every tally group and every numeral on every page is plain drawn CSS, in the same way in both the color set and the ink-saver set. There is no picture library to run out of and no image to misread; the only thing a child reads is a count.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the data sheet, the graph header, the family page and the example-style notes, or print and use a pen. The card pages and tally strips print on cardstock or plain paper and cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document, and it is not a test of anything.

It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule, and it does not decide what a percent means for a student or when to move up a level. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. It measures one thing: cards with the right numeral marked for the tally group shown.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals running independent work stations or task box rotations with students working on counting by fives, case managers who need that practice to show up as data, and the families who get the practice page sent home.

More In The Collection

This is one set in the Task Box Collection; more sort, counting and sequencing boxes are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same cards-plus-data shape.