ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on children’s mathematical development from birth, looking at the complex ways in which their talking, thinking and understanding unfolds through play and exploration and being active learners. Young children’s development is not a neat and tidy process but more of a weaving together of developmental theories, research and pedagogy which connect in many ways and are not just mathematically related. The chapter explores some of them, including: what we mean by ‘learning momentum’; maintaining momentum, a mathematical journey – babies, toddlers and older children; mathematical talking and thinking; and schema and mathematical development. It also covers how schema underpin children’s mathematical concepts; embodied learning and mathematical development; and spatial reasoning and mathematical development. Recognising the part that schema have in laying the foundation to later mathematical concepts is often forgotten in practice or not completely understood; similarly with embodied learning and spatial reasoning.
