Counting on Play: Mathematic Competency in a Play-Based Curriculum

By Todd Erickson, Teacher

Children are natural and active mathematicians, innately interested in patterning, ordering and classifying but capable of even more complex mathematical work with thoughtful outside support. Supporting this work is important because not only are mathematic elements such as logic and reasoning crucial for thinking, but many researchers have found that math competency predicts academic success at both elementary and high school levels, according to child development researcher Greg Duncan, PhD, and his colleagues.

As Bing teachers strive to prepare children for academic careers beyond our program, we diligently reflect on our many roles as early childhood educators. A related question examined by the teachers in Center PM classroom is a common one to early childhood educators working in programs like Bing: What is our role as teachers in providing children a developmentally appropriate mathematics foundation in a play-based nursery school setting, and what are the children learning in this process? In my case, this question emanated from my graduate studies at San Francisco State University’s education program (early childhood concentration), which challenged students to become not only early childhood educators but early childhood researchers, tackling meaningful classroom questions and challenges through documentation, analysis, interpretation and subsequent action. This reflective, proactive stance deepens our practice and fortifies our profession. The outgrowth of the above Center PM question has also become the genesis for a presentation I have shared locally and nationally.

Before teachers can grapple with the relationship between play and math, we must understand what math competencies are expected of our children as they graduate from Bing. Developed by our state’s Department of Education, the California Preschool Learning Foundations (2008) identify knowledge content for preschoolers in broad discipline areas such as language and math. In terms of math, the Preschool Learning Foundations focus on five large content areas: number sense, algebra and functions, mathematic reasoning, geometry and measurement/unit.

Armed with an understanding of these content areas, teachers can strategically extend the math play that takes place every day at Bing through activities such as pouring water, building with unit blocks and digging in the sand. Through a process known as mathematization, teachers can subtly become a guide during children’s spontaneous play, sometimes with an open-ended question, sometimes to define terms, sometimes to pull the children’s thoughts together (Clements & Sarama, 2009). For example, if children are building structures with unit blocks a teacher might remember the Learning Foundations focus on mathematic reasoning and ask, “I wonder how we could figure out how tall your structures are?” The question invites children to share their guesses and test their strategies about measurement.

Children are active learners who are often motivated through contextually meaningful visual and physical representation. Charts are an excellent way for children to think about and interact with mathematics.

Essential to children’s learning and Bing pedagogy is play, the lens through which children naturally experience their world. One example of a Center PM play-based math experience sprang out of a classroom-wide interest in running and jumping. Using the appealing name, “The Running and Jumping Club,” the teachers offered children a chance to repeatedly run a course together while timing their collective efforts. The children recorded and then compared each run. Their developmentally appropriate use and recognition of numerals extended their number sense, a Learning Foundations competency. The children also took turns jumping as far as they could, then recording their jumps on personalized charts. As children measured their jumps with unit blocks and used the charts to compare the progress of their jumps, they worked with measurement/unit, another Learning Foundations content area. Also important to the children’s experience was the accompanying “math talk,” including terms like more, less and total.

Play provides Bing children with meaningful contexts through which mathematic experiences can be discovered. Through intentionality, integration and reflection, teachers can become both learners and researchers as we guide children down the vital path of increasing math competency.