PRESCHOOL CHILDREN AND MATHEMATICS
Meeting with mathematics begins with birth. Obtaining object continuity and understanding simple cause-effect relationships in infancy is considered fundamental in mathematics development. With age, the increase in experiences and competencies in other fields constitutes new stages in mathematics development. When the preschool period is completed, the child will have gained many basic mathematical skills required for school mathematics. In the preschool period, children can develop mathematical thinking, including problem solving, inferencing, making connections and using the language of mathematics, and acquire basic skills in shape, number and operations, measurement and location in space.
It can also prepare graphs that include simple data collection and evaluation. Preschool children acquire all these skills depends on the use of appropriate planning, materials and strategies, and an active place in daily life by considering mathematics as a part of daily life.
The foundations of mathematical concepts are laid in infancy. Babies want to learn everything about their environment with a natural curiosity by watching, touching, smelling, tasting and hearing sounds. The basis of many information about size, weight, shape, time and space is laid in infancy. The desire of children to explore and experiment continues increasingly in the following years. After the age of two, the child’s competence in coping with new situations and finding appropriate solutions to problems improves. Collecting data to solve problems and organizing the data it collects begins to appear. In this context, the child increases his / her observation, recording, numerical and organizational skills.
Meeting with mathematics starts with birth. The acquisition of object continuity and understanding of cause and effect relationships in infancy is accepted as the basis in mathematics development.