”Att ordna, från ordning till ordning. Yngre förskolebarns matematiserende”.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how children aged one to three years at daycare centres develop their mathematical skills. The study builds on a hypothesis that over time children develop their skills to organise different types of material, and the development of these skills is an indication of a development in the children’s informal mathematical skills.

Through detailed descriptions of the children's play with rings and cups, the author shows how the children’s skills to organise the toys are developed, and what different strategies the children use. The dissertation shows that children aged one to three are capable of organising one dimension at a time; first the difference between rings and cups, and then to which towers they belong. Subsequently the child are capable of separating into size dimensions and finally able to identify that the rings and the cups all have a special place in the order. The results indicate a development in the children’s informal mathematical skills.

One at a time, 16 children were asked to play with different materials, particularly rings and cups which can be stacked into towers, as the children’s play with these materials was seen as an expression of children’s informal mathematical skills. The children’s play was recorded on video for 29 days over a period of seven months. A total of 47½ hours were recorded. The author registered a total of 624 activities in these games. Characteristic activities, such as building towers or sorting cups, which were carried out by several children and which were carried out often, were selected for analysis in order to illustrate the children’s mathematical skills.

Reis, M. (2011). ”Att ordna, från ordning till ordning. Yngre förskolebarns matematiserende”. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet.