The "Math Is Everywhere' Preschool Mathematics Curriculum

Abstract

uring a circle-time discussion of family pets, the teacher asks all children who have a cat to stand up. Dominique volunteers to count the children. She exclaims, "One, two, three, four, five. Five kids have cats! I bet more kids have dogs." Her teacher responds, "Well, how would we figure that out?" The class has , been using "Math Is Everywhere," a flexible, activity-based curriculum designed to help preschool teachers integrate mathematics into their teaching. This curriculum has been shown to increase children's achievement and interest in mathematics (see Arnold et al. 2002). In developing this curriculum, we l discovered that many teachers were / l = t uncertain of how to teach mathematics to preschoolers. Moreover, some teachers were not convinced that their students were capable of learning or even interested in mathematical concepts. Through workshop discussions, teachers realized that they already were doing activities relevant to mathematics and that they could improve the effectiveness of these activities with simple strategies to maximize children's learning.