Mathematics Birth to Eight Years

Convenors:

Oliver Thiel, Queen Maud University College, Norway
Catherine Gripton, University of Nottingham, UK

Purpose

The EECERA SIG Mathematics provides an academic and rigorous forum to develop and disseminate high quality research on early childhood mathematics education. It has organised stimulating and relevant symposia and other presentations at recent EECERA conferences. Some collaborative research, publication and evaluation have arisen as a result of people engaging with others at SIG meetings and during presentations. There is great potential for future collaborations, perhaps through joint publication in books and papers. The SIG Mathematics is a friendly group looking to expand in order to continue learning about early childhood mathematics education. Please join us.

Objectives

The EECERA SIG Mathematics aims to coordinate and disseminate international research on the discourse in the emerging early childhood mathematics education field. It creates a space for shared thinking and for creating synergies between participants from a wide range of professional and scientific contexts to encourage a clearer articulation and understanding of early childhood pedagogy, policy and practice in relation to mathematics.

Reports

Click here to view the 2024-25 report (pdf)
Click here to view the 2025 EECERA meeting minutes (pdf)
Click here to view the 2023-24 report (pdf)
Click here to view the 2022-23 report (pdf)
Click here to view the 2021-22 report (pdf)
Click here to view the 2020-21 report (pdf)
Click here to view the 2019-20 report (pdf)
Click here to view the 2018-19 report (pdf)
Click here to view the 2017-18 report (pdf)

Click here to view the 2016-17 report (pdf)

Click here to view the 2014-15 report (pdf)

News & Events

At the 34th EECERA conference in Madeira in August 2026, the SIG will have three self-organised symposia:

1. Title: Early Mathematics in Action: Practices, Representations, and Play from Birth to Six Years
Chair: Oliver Thiel
Presentations:
a. Title: Children’s mathematical representations on the Blank Page: A study on diversity and graphic development
Presenters: Mequè Edo, Alba Torregrosa, Judith Fábrega
b. Title: Teaching early mathematical skills to toddlers
Presenter: Piia Parviainen
c. Title: The traditional Ethiopian board game Gebeta facilitates mathematical competencies in early childhood
Presenter: Oliver Thiel

2. Title: Children as Mathematical Thinkers and Co-Creators: Agency in Early Years Mathematics
Chair: Cath Gripton
Presentations:
a. Title: ‘I was zero before I was one’ Engaging Australian teachers in dialogue about young children’s mathematical thinking through their classroom research.
Presenter: Elizabeth Carruthers
b. Title: Children’s mathematics attitudes and experiences in the first years of school: Evidence from 4- and 6-year-olds in England
Presenters: Catherine Gripton, Gabriel Lee, Bethany Woollacott & Balbir Kaur
c. Tentative title: Game design in kindergarten
Presenters: Elena Severina, Magni Hope Lossius & a student

3. Title: Developing Mathematical Meaning in Early Childhood: Thinking, Talk, and Play
Chair: Chrystalla Papademetri
Presentations:
a. Title: Scoping review on children’s probabilistic thinking: theories, methods and implications
Presenter: Zoi Nikiforidou
b. Title: Preschool Teachers’ Views on Talk Moves for Supporting Mathematical Conversations
Presenters: Benita Berg & Pernilla Sundqvist
c. Title: Play and Mathematics in Early Childhood Education – Perspectives and Practices across Countries and Cultures
Presenters: Chrystalla Papademetri, Oliver Thiel, & Elizabeth Carruthers

Call for papers 

There are currently no calls for papers open

SIG Meeting

The SIG Mathematics Birth to Eight Years are organising a hybrid SIG meeting at EECERA 2026 in Madeira on Tuesday, 25th August 2026, from 14:00 to 16:00 (WEST).

More information to follow. For any questions regarding this or if you wish to book a place to attend, please contact Oliver Thiel.

New book in the EECERA Praxis series

In 2025, the SIG finalised the book ‘Play and Mathematics in Early Childhood – Perspectives and Practices across Countries and Cultures.’ The editors are Oliver Thiel, Elizabeth Carruthers, and Chrystalla Papademetri. The book will be published in July 2026 in the EECERA Praxis Series. This innovative book examines the dynamic intersection between play and mathematics in early childhood education, challenging traditional educational approaches. Through international perspectives and practices, it demonstrates how mathematical concepts naturally emerge through children’s play and how educators can enhance mathematical learning without disrupting the play experience.

Comprising eleven chapters that draw on diverse cultural and educational perspectives, the book explores how children engage with mathematical concepts through play across countries and contexts. It addresses critical issues for early childhood education and care practitioners, examining similarities and distinctions between mathematics and play and providing practical approaches to integrating mathematics into play across various age groups. The comparative international approach highlights both the universality of play in learning and unique cultural methods for facilitating mathematical understanding. Original research showcases how children’s mathematical thinking surfaces in various play scenarios and offers pedagogical practices that support both play and mathematical development without compromising the integrity of either.

This essential resource serves early childhood educators, researchers, students, and policymakers committed to enhancing the quality and effectiveness of mathematics education. It provides practical guidance for promoting more equitable and engaging approaches to mathematical learning in the early years. You can find more information at https://www.routledge.com/9781041238379.

PED talks

At the 29th EECERA Annual Conference in Thessaloniki, Kelly Johnston had a PED Talk (Pedagogical TED Talk) about mathematics in the lives of infants and toddlers. You can watch it on YouTube.

At the 28th EECERA Annual Conference in Budapest, Oliver Thiel had a PED Talk (Pedagogical TED Talk) about early childhood mathematics. You can watch it on YouTube. Full text of the talk is available on ResearchGate.

If you are interested, please, contact Oliver Thiel.

Activities & Publications

2025

The SIG had one self-organised symposium. The symposium was titled ‘Play and Mathematics in Norwegian Early Childhood Education’. The three presentations were:

a. ‘That’s a bit unfair’ How Norwegian five-year-olds use the stochastic concept ‘fairness’ in free play
Presenter: Oliver Thiel
b. Increasing professional Digital Competence in ECTE with focus on enriching and supporting children’s play with coding toys
Presenters: Elin Reikerås and Francesca Granone
c. Kindergarten Teacher Educators’ Experiences with Co-Creation and Playful Approaches in Language, Text and Mathematics
Presenters: Elena Severina, Magni Lossius, and Maria-Rosa Doublet

2024

In 2024, SIG members organised two self-organised symposia for the EECERA conference in Brighton, which was held in September 2024. The two symposia were:

1. Wednesday, 4 September 2024, 11.15-12.00, symposium set B: Innovative Research in Early Childhood Mathematics Education
Chair: Bob Perry

a. Online early years professional learning: Notice, explore and talk about mathematics in everyday lives
Presenters: Bob Perry and Sue Dockett
b. Teachers reflecting on mathematical events associated to pretend play activities with 5-year-old children: identification of mathematical events and productive verbal behaviors
Presenter: Linda Amrar
c. The Role of Teacher Researcher to Conceptually Change Mathematics’ Pedagogies
Presenter: Elizabeth Carruthers

2. Thursday, 5 September 2024, 9.00-10.15, symposium set D: New Dimensions in Early Mathematics Education: Play, Assessment, and Children’s Voices
Chair: Anne Nakken

a. Investigating five-year-old children’s number sense in early childhood education using digital tasks
Presenter: Gunnhild Saksvik-Raanes
b. Intertextuality and the mathematical potentials of spontaneous pretend play
Presenter: Maulfry Worthington
c. Researching affect and experience in early childhood mathematics: Developing a survey instrument for 4- and 5-year-olds in England
Presenter: Catherine Gripton

2023

In 2023, SIG members organised three self-organised symposia for the EECERA conference in Cascais, which was held in August 2023. The three symposia were:

1. Thursday, 31 August 2023, 13.00-14.20, symposium set B: Play and Mathematics (II)
Chair: Oliver Thiel

a. On young children’s use of semiotic resources when reasoning about and explaining hypothetical situations
Presenter: Elena Severina
b. Play and mathematics in an Italian and a Swedish preschool context
Presenters: Karin Franzén, Benita Berg, Ester Catucci, and Laura Leonardi
c. The blank page: Students’ representations and decomposition of numbers
Presenters: Judith Fabrega and Mequè Edo

2. Thursday, 31 August 2023, 15.10-16.30, symposium set C: Play and Mathematics (I)
Chair: Oliver Thiel

a. Acknowledging the Multiple Aspects of Children’s Engagement with Mathematics in Child-led Play: Perspectives from England and Greece
Presenter: Elizabeth Carruthers, Non-presenting co-author: Maria Papandreou
b. Stochastics in Children’s Outdoor Play – First results
Presenters: Oliver Thiel and Zoi Nikiforidou, Non-presenting co-author: Lucía Casal-de-la-Fuente
c. Exploring educators’ perspectives on the mathematics in young children’s play: A cross-cultural study in Norway and England
Presenters: Camilla Normann Justnes, Catherine Gripton, Beate Nergård, and Anne Nakken

3. Friday, 1 September 2023, 13.50-15.10, symposium set F: Early Childhood Mathematics – curiosity, creativity and play with technology

a. ViduKids – movie making and mathematics in a playful and exploring mode
Presenter: Signe Marie Hanssen
b. ECEC children playing with a coding toy: the role of mathematics, creativity and curiosity
Presenters: Elin Reikerås, Francesca Granone, and Sami Konca
c. Ducks divide money – problem-solving in ECEC
Presenters: Anne Nakken and Oliver Thiel

2022

SIG members organised two self-organised symposia and participated in two individual paper symposia for the EECERA conference in Glasgow.

1. SYMPOSIUM A17: Playful learning of powerful mathematical knowledge in early childhood
   Chair:        Oliver Thiel
   1. Catherine Gripton
      Developing mathematical patterning in ECE classrooms: participatory research with teachers of 3-5 year olds
   2. Judith Fabrega, Mequè Edo, and Alba Torregrossa
      Supporting early mathematics through play: Number Decomposition
   3. Anne Nakken, Oliver Thiel
      Child led animation video production to enrich mathematical thinking
2. SYMPOSIUM B8: Mathematics and Play in Early Childhood: Children, Teachers and Families
   Chair:        Bob Perry
   1. Bob Perry
      Let’s Count: Revision and Redevelopment
   2. Elizabeth Carruthers
      Early Years Teachers Perspectives on their Pedagogies of Play and Mathematics
   3. Maulfry Worthington
      Play, agency and young children’s mathematics
3. SYMPOSIUM D2: Digital technologies and mathematical learning
   Chair:        Andreas Ebbelind
   1. Andreas Ebbelind, Hanna Palmér, Marina Wernholm, Emelie Patron, Kristina Danielsson
      Six-year-olds create digital animations to reinforce mathematical problem solving
   2. Liliana Silva and Andrea Maffia
      Validation of a tool to assess mathematical skills with board games in early years
4. SYMPOSIUM E23: Sorting maths in ECEC
   Chair:        Chrystalla Papademetri
   1. Chrystalla Papademetri
      A Pedagogy of willingness to uncertainty, triggering the unexpected: Stories of children playfully doing mathematics!
   2. Lisa Kristina Lunde, Hjørdis H. K. Bakke, Christine Seehuus, Anne Nakken
      Sorting and re-sorting
   3. Lynn O’Dwyer
      Exploring Early Years Mathematics Teaching and Learning in the context of an Irish Preschool Classroom

2021

• At EECERA Online Festival 2021, we had one self-organised symposium and members of the SIG had talks in other symposia.

1. Symposium SET 2: Making maths count
   • Presenter 1: Maria Figueiredo
     “It’s a thing for measuring things”: children’s talking and playing with measurement tools in early childhood education
   • Presenters 2: Bob Perry and Sue Dockett
     Educators and Community Facilitating Mathematics Learning: Let’s Count
2. Symposium SET 4: Children’s mathematizing in spontaneous play
   • Presenter 1: Maulfry Worthington
     A natural history of mathematical signs: Democracy, freedom and the emergent learner
   • Presenter 2: Elizabeth Carruthers
     Where is the Mathematics of Children? Teachers’ Observations and reflections on children’s mathematics in imaginary play episodes.
   • Presenter 3: Annerieke Boland
     Counting on spontaneous play.

2020

We published the book
Thiel, O., Severina, E. & Perry, B. (Eds.). Mathematics in early childhood: Research, reflexive practice and innovative pedagogy. London: Routledge.

2019

• We organised three self-organised symposia and had a PED Talk at the EECERA conference in Thessaloniki in 2019:

1. Symposium A10: Mathematics in early childhood: Reflexive praxsis leading to innovative pedagogy
   Chair: Camilla Normann Justnes
   • Presenter 1: Oliver Thiel
     Reflexive praxis leading to innovative early childhood mathematics
   • Presenter 2: Bob Perry and Oliver Thiel
     Harry’s Line Work
   • Presenter 3: Maria Figueiredo
     The power of play: Cowboys, measuring tapes and the construction of meanings by children
2. Symposium B11: Pedagogical understandings that promote children’s own mathematics
   Chair: Oliver Thiel
   • Presenter 1: Elizabeth Carruthers
     Moving from an adult orientated perspective to a child-centred model of early mathematics pedagogy
   • Presenter 2: Maulfry Worthington
     The cultural transmission of mathematical signs: Child’s play
   • Presenter 3: Silje Christiansen
     Multilingual children’s participation in mathematical activities
3. Symposium E19: The importance of language and values in young children’s mathematical learning
   Chair: Kelly Johnston
   • Presenter 1: Kelly Johnston
     More than ‘more’: Mathematical language in snack-time conversations with toddlers
   • Presenter 2: Camilla Normann Justnes
     How Norwegian preschool teachers make sense of talk moves: A case study
   • Presenter 3: Dorota Lembrér
     Mathematics at home: Parents’ views on children’s mathematics learning and development
4. PED Talk: Starting at the beginning: Mathematics in the lives of infants and toddlers
   Presenter: Kelly Johnston

2018

• We published a Special Issue of the EECERJ:
  Thiel, O. and Perry, B. (Eds.) (2018). Innovative approaches in early childhood mathematics. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 26 (4)
• We organised a self-organised Symposium and had a PED Talk at the EECERA conference in Budapest in 2018:

1. Symposium: Mathematics Birth to Eight Years SIG Symposium
   Chair: Oliver Thiel
   • Presenter 1: Doris Drexl
     Teaching ECEC students to support children in learning mathematics
   • Presenter 2: Elin Kirsti Lie Reikerås
     Gender differences in mathematics in toddler and preschool age
   • Presenter 3: Bob Perry and Sue Dockett
     Noticing preschool children’s engagement with powerful mathematical ideas
2. PED Talk: Let’s play mathematics!
   Presenter: Oliver Thiel

2017

1. • We organised four self-organised Symposia for the EECERA conference in Bologna in 2017:
   1. Title: Mathematics education in early childhood
      Chair: Oliver Thiel 
      • Presenter 1: Sue Dockett and Bob Perry
        The place of proximal processes in young children’s mathematical learning
      • Presenter 2: Maulfry Worthington
        Mathematisation and agency in early childhood
      • Presenter 3: Maria Figueiredo
        Arithmetical operations in early childhood education: its kid’s play
   2. Title: Mathematics in transition to school
      Chair: Oliver Thiel 
      • Presenter 1: Camilla Norman Justnes
        Continuity in mathematics in the transition from kindergarten to school in Norway
      • Presenter 2: Wendy Goff
        Adult relationships that support the mathematical learning of children making the transition to school
      • Presenter 3: Oliver Thiel
        Early childhood teacher students’ mathematics anxiety
   1. Title: Early childhood teachers’ thoughts about mathematics
      Chair: Chrystalla Papademetri
      • Presenter 1: Elizabeth Dunphy
        Factors influencing preservice teachers’ choices of picture book for mathematics learning in early childhood
      • Presenter 2: Pamela Moffett
        ECEC teachers’ views on abstract representation in mathematics
      • Presenter 3: Elizabeth Carruthers
        Really Listening to Children’s Voices in Mathematics – Levels of Teacher Understanding and the Pedagogical Implications
   2. Title: The Big Idea Approach
      Chair: Chrystalla Papademetri
      • Presenter 1: Marianna Efstathiadou
        Be a skilled observer and a reflective thinker: Helping prospective early childhood teachers to plan their mathematical activities through analysing children’s play
      • Presenter 2: Andrea Eliadou
        Teaching Mathematical Concepts VS “Triggering”, as opportunity to learning and teaching, through the “Big Idea approach”: Attempt at designing mathematical activities with young learners
      • Presenter 3: Chrystalla Papademetri
        Stories of young children ‘cycling around’ mathematical ideas against the fragmentation of knowledge

2016

1. • We organised two self-organised Symposia for the EECERA conference in Dublin 2016:
   1. Title: We Talk about Mathematics in Early Childhood
      Chair: Oliver Thiel
      • Presenter 1: Sue Dockett
        Young children noticing their own mathematics in play
      • Presenter 2: Pamela Moffett
        Promoting early number talk – Evaluating the impact on professional practice
   2. Title: Innovative Approaches in Early Childhood Mathematics
      Chair: Oliver Thiel
      • Presenter 1: Liz Dunphy
        Picture-books as pedagogical tools for supporting mathematics learning in early childhood
      • Presenter 2: Oliver Thiel
        Young children explore a mathematics room
      • Presenter 3: Marianna Efstathiadou, Andrea Eliadou and Chrystalla Papademetri
        Supporting early childhood teachers to redefine learning through creative learning and play concerning mathematics

2015

1. • We organised two self-organised Symposia for the EECERA conference in Barcelona 2015:
   1. Title: Early Childhood Mathematics
      Chair: Oliver Thiel
      • Presenter 1: Kerstin Bäckman
        Play and Everyday Mathematics in Preschool
      • Presenter 2: Bob Perry
        Preschool educators working with parents to help children notice their mathematics
      • Presenter 3: Oliver Thiel
        Early childhood teacher students’ beliefs about mathematics
   2. Title: Mathematizing in early childhood
      Chair: Oliver Thiel
      • Presenter 1: Liz Dunphy
        Mathematical Thinking Processes: Supporting Children’s Engagement at the Transition to School
      • Presenter 2: Gabriella Gejard
        Children’s and teachers’ interaction in mathematical activities in a Swedish preschool
      • Presenter 3: Oliver Thiel
        A room for mathematics in early childhood

2014

• SIG meeting at EECERA conference in Crete 2014;
• collated a list of contact addresses to enable participants to pursue points of discussion raised at that meeting;
• started a Google-drive, Facebook-group, and LinkedIn-group to exchange information and documents;

Links & Partners

Children’s Mathematics Network: https://childrens-mathematics.net

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1515014682076863/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=6928873

Norwegian Centre for Mathematics Education: https://www.matematikksenteret.no/english

Observatory for Mathematical Education: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/observatory

Feel free to join!