Four Ways To Use Tablets To Foster Early Math Learning For Preshoolers

By Author: Preschool Education
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Many questions arise when it comes to technology in early childhood. This blog describes how to use digital tools effectively to promote young children's learning in a critical content area.

Digital tools have the potential to promote mathematics learning, particularly if the content is appropriately challenging. They can assist young learners in embracing and comprehending skills with the help of educational videos for preschool such as data collection and analysis, equipartitioning (equally dividing), and subitizing (quickly "seeing" a number of objects without counting). We describe four developmentally appropriate ways to use tablets to support preschoolers' early math learning.

Use Tablet Features
Using the tablet's built-in features, such as the photo and video apps, is one of the simplest ways to encourage early math learning. Teachers can assist their preschoolers in taking photos of their surroundings and then turn those photos into opportunities to learn math:

Take a photo of the block corner, then count how many blocks are in the picture.

Make a class body graph in which the students ...
... stand as data points in a grid on the floor. Take a picture to show the kids how they made a type of bar graph.

To play games, take photos of patterns and shapes. Ask children to look for patterns or shapes similar to those in the photos around the classroom.

Teachers can use the tablet's video feature to record children participating in math activities, such as measuring the room to see how wide it is when children stand with their arms outstretched. How many kids are required if their arms are at their sides? Teachers can show the video to students and have them describe what they see. They can also use the slow-motion or time-lapse feature of the video to create videos that help children closely examine things that happen quickly, such as objects rolling down a ramp.

Selectively Employ Games
Apps are a popular way for children to learn and be inspired to apply specific mathematical skills by using tablets. However, in order to effectively use digital games, teachers must be selective and link game content to what children are learning in non-digital contexts. Apps and digital games can improve teaching and learning when teachers incorporate them into their activity plans and learning objectives rather than using them as an unrelated add-on that does not tie into the curriculum or overall learning objectives.

Digital games can be combined with books, puzzles, board games, or art activities to provide multimodal experiences that support integration with existing learning. Set up a digital learning centre and encourage children to visit it for short periods of time (such as 10 to 15 minutes) each day to play games. Allow children to use touchscreen tablets in pairs or small groups to best support learning.

Digital app learning can be a social experience. Any digital game used in the classroom should promote co-viewing and co-playing. Look for games that encourage sharing, collaboration, and discussion when choosing apps. This suite provides meaningful opportunities for children to practise and improve their mathematics skills while also engaging in learning as a social endeavour.

Leverage Digital Tools for Teacher Use
Teachers should use apps that allow them to manage the experience and modulate the complexity of tasks based on their children's strengths, needs, and interests when using tablets to develop early math learning. The app scaffolds the data collection and graphing process as the teacher holds and operates it. This means they can spend more time talking about their questions and analysing the data instead of making graphs.

Connect to Content Areas
When digital tools are purposefully integrated into the curriculum and linked to multiple content areas, they have greater power.
Teachers can integrate digital tools into their curriculum in a variety of ways:

Use e-books to support language and literacy, or document children's work and ask them to describe their learning process. Make a class book that the children can share with their families.

To build on children's interests and answer questions, use live-streamed videos of animals in various habitats, such as those from zoos, aquariums, or wildlife cams.

To improve investigations of living things and light and shadow, access information that is difficult to see in real time, such as a seed sprouting or shadows moving. Apps like the one we developed promote science learning by scaffolding the process of conducting an investigation to answer a research question, such as how do animals move?
Talking about data while viewing graphs and other mathematical information can help children develop language and reasoning skills. (Which graph has the most? Which has the least? Which one has the same number of units?)

Connect with children's families by photographing and recording messages from children about their school experiences. Similarly, request that families assist children in connecting home and school by sharing similar messages and digital photos from home. This can be accomplished during the morning meeting.

Take advantage of your children's social and emotional development. For example, in our app, children are asked to identify and report how they feel at various times of the day and when they strike a "silly pose." Activities like these allow children to identify emotions and consider what influences those emotions.

Conclusion
If digital tools are intentionally incorporated into the curriculum, they have the potential to be an asset in preschool settings. This can be accomplished by utilising specific features of the digital tablet itself, incorporating interactive games and apps into learning experiences, locating and utilising digital tools that support learning objectives, and connecting the digital experience across content areas.