Making 10 – Class 1 Maths Chapter 4 Notes & NCERT PDF

Class 1MathematicsChapter 4NCERT book: Joyful Mathematics - Class 1

Notes and a simple summary of Chapter 4 of the NCERT Class 1 Mathematics book, with the official chapter PDF, flashcards, an MCQ quiz and an AI tutor for your doubts.

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Chapter 4: Making 10

Introduction

"Making 10" takes children from 1–9 to zero, ten and the teen numbers up to 20. It uses dot patterns on a ladybug, a monkey losing his shirt buttons, a tenth birthday, finger games and Simran's boxes of oranges. By the end, children see that 10 and 1 is 11, 10 and 2 is 12, all the way to 10 and 10 is 20.

What's in this Chapter

Dotty Bug and her Designs: Count the dots on each ladybug and make dot designs with tamarind seeds, pebbles, buttons and bindis. The book calls quick recognition of dot patterns without counting subitization.

Dice game: Roll a dice and colour a box with the same number of dots; the child with more coloured boxes wins.

Vanishing Buttons: Gola monkey eats too many bananas and his buttons pop off one by one: four, three, two, one, zero buttons. Zero is also a number. The book also discusses a balanced diet and the ill-effects of overeating.

Think and Tell: How many suns do you see at night? How many moons at noon? (Zero.)

Tenth Birthday: Aastha says, "I am 9 years old and after 1 more year, I will be 10 years old. So, 9 and 1 more makes 10."

Strings of 10 beads and ten frames of buttons.

The Handy Five and Ten: Number pairs of 5 (1 and 4, 2 and 3…) and pairs of 10 (1 + 9 = 10, 2 + 8 = 10…).

Card game: Pick two cards; if they make 10, keep them.

Counting up to 20: Simran in Nagpur packs oranges in boxes of 10. "10 and 1 is 11 – Eleven … 10 and 10 is 20 – Twenty."

Count and Write: Colour ten frames for 14, 19 and 16, find the tallest tower, circle the smallest and biggest numbers, and join numbers 1 to 20 to make a picture.

Key Ideas

Zero (0) means none – it is also a number.

Small groups can be recognised at a glance (subitization).

Ten can be made in many ways: 1 + 9, 2 + 8, 3 + 7, 4 + 6, 5 + 5 and so on.

The teen numbers are "ten and some more": 13 is 10 and 3.

Numbers from 1 to 20 can be compared; 15 is bigger than 11 because it is 4 more than 11.

Activities from the Book

Make dot designs and dot cards for numbers 1 to 9.

Count backwards from 5 to 0 and later from 9 to 0.

Play the finger game: one child shows some fingers, the other shows the folded fingers to make 10.

Circle the smallest number: 8, 12, 6 → 6; 14, 11, 19 → 11. Circle the biggest: 16, 19, 11 → 19; 11, 17, 9 → 17.

Write from biggest to smallest: 11, 3, 16, 20, 13, 9 → 20, 16, 13, 11, 9, 3.

Project: find things in groups of 10 and make number cards 10 to 20.

Words to Learn

zero – nothing, none (शून्य)

ten – 10 (दस)

pair – two things that go together (जोड़ी)

ten frame – a box with 10 spaces (दस का खाका)

eleven, twelve … twenty – numbers after ten (ग्यारह, बारह … बीस)

dots – small round marks (बिंदु)

biggest / smallest – the most / the least (सबसे बड़ा / सबसे छोटा)

backwards – counting down (उल्टी गिनती)

Tips for Parents & Teachers

Hold up dot cards for a second and ask "How many?" to build quick recognition.

Use fingers daily: "I show 7. How many more to make 10?"

Group seeds or buttons in tens, then count "ten and one more… eleven".

Ask children to guess a handful of up to 20 objects first, then group and count.

Link the Gola monkey story to healthy eating habits.

Common Mistakes

Thinking zero is "not a number".

Reading 12 as "one-two" and writing teen numbers backwards (e.g., 61 for 16).

Forgetting a pair when listing ways to make 10; work in order: 1 + 9, 2 + 8, 3 + 7…

💡 Key Learning Points

✓Recognise small dot patterns without counting one by one.
✓Understand zero as a number meaning none.
✓Make 5 and 10 in different ways using number pairs.
✓Count, read and write numbers from 11 to 20 as ten and some more.
✓Compare and order numbers up to 20.

👨‍🏫 Teaching Tips

→Use dot and colour flash cards for subitization, as the book advises.
→Enact the Vanishing Buttons story, removing one button at a time and counting down to zero.
→Ask children to name things around them whose number is zero, like buses in the classroom.
→Play the finger game for pairs of 5 and 10 daily.
→Use the card game with 5 sets of cards 1 to 10 to practise making 10.
→Group real objects into tens and ones to build teen numbers.
→Ask children how they decided which number is bigger, and let them explain.

📋 Assessment Questions

Can the child recognise dot patterns up to 6 at a glance?
Can the child explain what zero means with an example?
Can the child give at least four number pairs that make 10?
Can the child read and write 11 to 20 and show them on a ten frame?
Can the child order a set of numbers up to 20 from biggest to smallest?

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