Mathematics is part of everyday life, which is why it is important for the university student of Early Childhood Education to acquire the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge that will allow him/her to take on the challenge of supporting children in the process of constructing logical-mathematical learning in a pleasant and meaningful way, supported by a literature that has been strengthened over time with the various scientific investigations in the area of Education.
Therefore, part of the academic curriculum of this career is focused on mathematics training, whose contents will guide the didactics of future teachers in relation to logical processes -seriation, classification, number- and infralogical processes -space and time-, taking into account a wide variety of playful situations and didactic orientations that will allow students to generate significant learning.
These contents emphasize that the first mathematical notions are formed from the first years of life, and that the set of activities aimed at developing the functions and schemes of thought necessary for numerical, logical and operative learning is known as mathematical training, which, adjusted to the needs and interests of children, allows the consolidation of these notions.
Therefore, it is important that the school allows children to explore their reality and help them to understand and modify it, so the teacher must be prepared to offer a set of different activities that give rise to new experiences that allow children to build logical-mathematical processes.
However, in order to consolidate the child's logical-mathematical reasoning structures, the child needs opportunities to learn by himself with the help of an adult who guides him to use his senses to observe the environment and manipulate and experiment actions with objects to create mental schemes from everyday life, using specific materials and didactically designed games, which should pose problems that require logical solutions that promote cognitive conflicts - individually - and socio-cognitive - in groups.
But, in addition, it is also necessary to take into account that for a person's activity to be called mathematical, it is necessary that the experience has involved and put into operation his or her logical thinking; that is, this involves reasoning on the part of the child, and that is when teachers must offer all the necessary opportunities, acting as conscious mediators of the learning process.
Of course, to achieve good results, it is necessary to deepen in all the theoretical aspects offered by the various approaches, research and theories in the field of mathematics, as well as to know the full range of opportunities that exist from games, songs, stories, dramatizations and other didactic activities that facilitate the process of mathematical construction.
These resources are of great help because, although at the beginning numbers can be somewhat abstract, they become more meaningful when they are learned directly through real life situations, making them a meaningful construct for children because they are part of their context; and it is there where the future teacher has the responsibility to turn mathematics into something pleasant and useful for all children.
Thus, from a constructivist point of view, Early Childhood Education students will be able to enjoy and appropriate a whole range of knowledge, both theoretical and practical, which will make mathematics a pleasant didactic journey for children, who will acquire the necessary tools to be able to solve numerical and logical situations present in everyday life.
Jenny Quiroz Villacís
Early Childhood Education Teacher
