Cultivation of Numerical Thinking in Early Childhood Education Using Folk Games in Rural China

Abstract

In early childhood education in rural areas, including ethnic minority areas, children’s folk games often play an important role in cultivating numerical thinking. The establishment of number sense is a concrete representation of the development of numerical thinking. Accordingly, this study evaluated the number sense of senior kindergarten and grade 1 students with and without the influence of playing folk games. The results showed that the groups of students exposed to the games were significantly superior to the non-influenced groups in counting, calculation, arithmetic cognition and number transformation, among other areas. Therefore, under the premise of the unbalanced development of education in rural China, it is necessary to emphasize the development and expansion of children’s folk games to reduce the delay in cultivating mathematical thinking.