ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to acknowledge that experiencing mathematics in the early years should feel very different from learning mathematics in the later years. Specifically, children should be much more involved in initiating their own learning and should be developing their mathematical skills through activity. Schooling in mathematics expects learning to ‘progress at broadly the same pace’. Education in mathematics is when unique individuals develop and learn according to their needs and interests. Children know bus numbers, know how many brothers and sisters they have, know about sharing, may have a sense of money, a sense of size from very young. The chapter explores how every child brings with them their own mathematical understanding and is capable of developing their understandings, with a teacher, who may be an early years’ practitioner, another adult, a parent or a friend.
