Math in Early Childhood
How kindergarteners get to experience math in Ms. Dory’s Star Garden class.
The young child constantly encounters and deeply receives mathematical concepts into themselves. Though it may be years before some concepts are fully named or integrated into more complex ideas or challenges, we begin to be rooted in math when we are born.
One for everyone.
Mathematical concepts are a part of daily life. Surprisingly, they give a sense of dependability, stability and security to life. They are one thing we can all agree on, not swayed or colored by our individual circumstances, feelings, or perceptions. Mathematical truths are objective and steadfast.
Equal is always equal. More is always more. Whole is whole. Part is part.
Math is impartial. Where we find ourselves feeling partial to one or another thing, gravitating toward one choice over another, there is no freedom as such in math. It is what it is. It is truth. One plus one makes two. Nine comes before ten. End of discussion.
Throughout a kindergarten day, week, and year, mathematical concepts are experienced deeply by the children. In forming lines to take turns, circles to play games. Ensuring each seat at the table has a placemat. In building structures out of giant blocks. In discovering the symmetry in a cut snowflake. In knowing the sequence of our day or in putting on our winter gear. First, second, before and after. All. None. Whole. Almost. In counting rhymes and songs with fingers. In baking bread. In the wonder of each number.
When a counting verse or song is brought to the children, a hush fills the room as they all look and listen, as if their dear friends have arrived… Who are these numbers? What are their rules? In some great mystery of life, they speak deeply to us.
Perhaps in engaging with the constant reality and neutrality of mathematics in life, we form within ourselves a sense for truth and a common ground.
“What, then, is the way to mutual understanding and unity for mankind? We understand one another in the field of reckoning and counting because here we have met the conditions required. Peace, concord and harmony will prevail among men to the extent that they find truth. That is the essential thing: that we should seek for truth as something to be found only in our own deepest being; and should know that truth ever and again draws men together, because from the innermost depth of every human soul its light shines forth.”
Four strong walls.
Weighing the same.
Circle Time Rhymes
“One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret never to be told.”
“Sing a song of six pence
A pocket full of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie…”
“One, two buckle my shoe
Three, four shut the door
Five, six pick up sticks
Seven, eight lay them straight…”