What is tens?

Tens are groups of ten things put together to make counting easier.

Imagine you have 20 jellybeans, and you want to know how many there are. Instead of counting one by one, you could group them into two groups of ten, like two little piles. Each pile is a ten, so now you just need to count the number of groups, which is easier!

When you have 10 blocks, that’s one ten. If you add another 10 blocks, you now have two tens, or 20 blocks total.

Think of it like this:

• A ten is like a bag that holds exactly ten marbles.
• If you have two bags full, that's two tens, which equals twenty marbles.

You can use tens to count bigger numbers quickly, just like how you group your toys into piles when you're cleaning up!