Find the Missing Numbers Worksheet

Six-year-olds often know the counting words, but hidden numbers can still make them pause. This page gives them four short number trails to finish by counting by ones. After each trail, they complete a simple addition or subtraction sentence with one missing number.

The trails stay close and clear: 16 to 20, 9 to 13, 0 to 4, and 8 to 12. Each trail has two blanks, so the work is small enough for a first grader who is building confidence with order, before-and-after numbers, and written numerals.

The practice links two ideas on the same page. First, children use the printed numbers around each blank to name the missing numbers. Then they look at a related number sentence, such as six plus one equals seven or twenty minus eleven equals nine, and fill in the missing part. If the number words themselves slow things down during other math work, number words to numerals practice is a helpful next step because it focuses on matching written number names to numerals.

Sit nearby and have them read the trail aloud from the first number to the last. If a blank feels tricky, point to the number just before it and ask, “What comes next?” For more of the same hidden-number thinking, try this missing numbers worksheet afterward, since it keeps the focus on filling gaps in a number pattern.