Free printable sequencing worksheets
Six sheets where order runs in time rather than along a row: an acorn becoming a tree in three pictures, getting dressed in three, baking a cake in four, a camping trip in five, a rainstorm with two numbers swapped to find and fix, and a matching page from what happens first to what happens next. Drawn with the book's tools, and in none of it.
US Letter · 6 pages · black and white · no signup
What is on the sheets
Print at actual size (100%), not "fit to page". The target sizes on these pages are chosen for a particular age of hand, and scaling shrinks them.
Using them well
Tell the story first
Before any numbers, ask the child to say what is happening in each picture. The order falls out of the telling.
Ask what would happen the other way
Shoes then socks. Cake before eggs. A wrong order that is funny is the fastest way to show that order carries meaning.
The swapped sheet is a debugging page
The numbers are already written and two are wrong. Finding a mistake that is not yours is a different skill from making the order, and it is the one the book's last unit builds toward.
Questions
What age are these sequencing worksheets for?
Four to six. Three pictures suit a four-year-old, four and five pictures a five-year-old, and the swapped-numbers sheet is for five or six. The child writes the numerals 1 to 5, so they need to be able to form them.
What does sequencing teach?
That events have an order and the order carries meaning. It is the same idea as a sequence in the coding book, steps happen in an order, met here through everyday things: getting dressed, baking a cake, a trip from packing the bag to the fire at night.
Does my child need to read?
No. Every sheet is pictures, and the instruction is an icon first with the sentence under it for the adult. The child writes numbers, not words.
Do I need to sign up or pay?
No. One PDF, six pages, no email address. They are not pages of the book: they are six new activities drawn by the book's renderer, with our mark and this address where a page number would be.
Guides that go with these
AB, ABC, AABB: what preschool pattern work teaches
Most pattern worksheets stop at AB and stay there. The progression past it is where the mathematics is.
Choosing a bookWhich activity book for which age: 3, 4, 5 and 6
The maze book lists from three. The other three list from four. Here is what sits inside those ranges: the book for each age, the page to open it at, and the sign that says move up.
For grown-upsHow to sit beside a child doing a worksheet
The most challenging part of an activity book is not on the page. It is sitting there while a four-year-old gets it wrong.
How we make themWhy our activity books are printed in black and white
The research behind it, the one finding that argues against it, and what the child gets in return.
Where these came from
These 6 are not in the book.
Matching, sorting, seriation, and patterns from AB to growing. This is the thinking a child needs before arithmetic makes sense. Seven units, each opening at its own easiest version: same and different, sorting by one rule then two, ordering by size, AB through AABB and growing patterns, sequencing events, shape and position, then challenges that combine them.
