Dr Montessori observed that “Children display a universal love of mathematics,” and true enough over 100 years later, children seem to keep finding math. Of course, there are designed math lessons in the classroom, but very often children find math on our playground without knowing what they’ve done. It’s clearly part of their nature.
On the simplest level, children love to count the flowers in our garden, or the numbers of green, orange or red tomatoes and report their findings to a friend or teacher. Occasionally a teacher may lead a simple quests like “go find five different leaves” or guide an impromptu lessons with wood cookies and sticks (below, with our “wood cookies”).
One favorite activity is for the children to gather 9, 12, 16, or 25 rocks and then guide them through a discussion of the varied patterns of rows and columns. There are possible endless variations. The kids enjoy the “found” nature of the activity, and all the while the 3-, 4- and 5-year olds are learning addition, subtraction and multiplication in the best way possible–they created it!
