Exploration of mathematical ideas using natural elements in early childhood education

Abstract

The paper presents a study carried out as part of the Supervised Teaching Practice (PES) of the master’s degree in Pre-School Education, which aim is to identify the contributions of using natural elements from the outdoor environment to learning mathematics in early childhood education. The study followed a qualitative approach, with a descriptive and interpretative focus, based on the implementation of a pedagogical proposal with a pre-school children group. The paper presents two mathematical situations involving the use of natural elements by the children. The data was collected through participant observation, field notes of the process of solving the situations and photographic records of the children’s work. The results show that the use of natural elements as unstructured manipulative materials brought out counting, the cardinality of sets, sorting, the exploration of quantities such as length and geometric figures that are more familiar to children, as well as problem solving. They also encouraged the exploration of the environment, particularly its natural elements, which proved to be a context with relevant contributions to learning mathematics.