THE INTRODUCTION TO MATH FOR CHILDREN IN EARLY AGES

Abstract

An early age (0-6) years is a golden period. This is the right time to provide stimulation to optimize
all aspects of children development. The aspects of children development that is in questions are:
moral, cognitive, motor, language, social, emotional, and art. All of those aspects need to be
developed for early childhood education, and one of them is cognitive development consisting of
the concept of shapes, sizes, and patterns, a concept of numbers, symbols of numbers and letters that
can be introduced through playing math.
The introduction of mathematics is very important for children in early ages. Many everyday
problems, even a very simple matter requires mathematical calculations such as, shopping, counting
objects, counting time, locating, counting distance, and counting speed. Early childhood education
teachers need to master simple math concepts that are appropriate for children in their early
childhood. The strategy to introduce simple math needs to be understood in order to train children
to count and use other mathematical calculations.
In order to introduce math for children in early childhood, forms of activities are geared towards the
development and characteristics of children i.e. by playing. Teacher introduces mathematics by
using fun activities and using concrete media. For children in 5-6 years old, their cognitive
development is being switched at a pre-operational phase to concrete. At this stage, children learn
best through presence objects. Children will easily remember things, numbers, and characteristics
even though it was not appeared in front of him. The introduction of mathematics was expected in
the various aspects of child developments, especially cognitive development in which it can be
developed optimally.
Keywords: Introduction to Mathematics, Early Childhood Education, Early Ages