Maths with infants and toddlers

Fostering maths understanding with infants and toddlers

Young children are active, curious, and seek to make sense of their world. These traits help them construct maths knowledge over time. Kaiako support this maths learning by being attentive to interests and by providing many opportunities to engage in rich and rewarding experiences.

Exploring rhythm and pattern

Infants learn about rhythm as they experience lullabies and waiata being sung to them. Rocking babies when we sing, and patting gently on their backs not only soothes, but helps them hear and feel the pattern in the music. A steady beat, rhythm and melody all reflect mathematical concepts. Different cultural dance and music can introduce a range of patterns and structures in engaging ways (Geist, 2009). Rhythm helps children to recognise more complex concepts such as 1-1 correspondence and predicting patterns.

Exploring natural patterns and textures

Infants experience patterns and sounds in the natural environment, such as leaves in sunlight or the sound of rain. Kaiako can leverage these rich textures and differences in nature by pointing out big and small rocks, long and short leaves and sticks, or noticing different volumes of water in puddles.

Exploring spaces

Exploring their immediate environment helps infants with ‘Spatial orientation’ through negotiating distance and direction as they move and play (Leavy, et al., 2018). It is important to provide plenty of opportunities and resources for children to move their bodies and explore in and through space. Crawling under, climbing over things, moving objects through space and building and knocking down towers are all part of early maths learning.

Providing engaging resources

Introducing interesting resources for exploration are also important for children’s learning. Te Whāriki highlights that it is important that:

“Toddlers have opportunities to collect, sort and organise objects and materials in a variety of ways and to develop a sense of order, for example, by grouping similar materials or putting things into their right place. They are encouraged to actively and creatively explore shapes, colours, textures, and patterns” (p. 47). 

Toddlers are likely to enjoy exploring sensory materials like sand, playdough, and water where quantity can be manipulated.

New tools and resources can be added to the environment to spark interest and excitement. For example, different sized cups and jugs for water play, treasure baskets with objects that have different shapes and textures, outdoor challenge courses to climb over and through, a variety of art resources to explore mark making and texture, and natural resources that can be categorised and arranged in patterns.

Simple counting books can be used to support children’s maths learning, and kaiako can tell and read stories where maths concepts are included. Books and stories as well as routines and tasks are good ways to show that maths is part of everyday experiences and contexts. For example:

• sharing kai
• counting objects
• sorting washing
• writing sleep times
• comparing sizes.

Maths learning through culture

Surrounding infants and toddlers with a maths-rich environment facilitates their awareness of the maths of their culture. Children start to use the maths they experience around them.  The concepts and tools they use will be dependent on the culture of those around them and influenced by the attitudes and behaviours of the people the child spends time with (Michelle and Cubey, 2023). It can be helpful to discuss with whānau some of the ways maths is used at home, in order to make connections to the language and maths that is used in the early learning setting.

Care routines

Care routines offer opportunities for kaiako to talk to mokopuna about:

• patterns (on clothes)
• quantity (the bottle is full, then empty)
• order (nappy first then trousers)
• shapes (of food)
• counting (buttons as they are done up, fingers and toes when changing a nappy)
• comparing (who has more?).

When kaiako recognise infants and toddlers’ innate maths concepts and capabilities and support and expand this learning with intentional teaching practices they are developing a positive foundation for lifelong enjoyment of maths.