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         The most powerful mathematics learning results from children’s exploration with problems and materials that interest them, adults should take advantage of opportunities to monitor and influence how children spend their time.

         Adults can provide young children with access to books and stories with numbers and patterns; to music with actions and directions such as up, down, in, and out; or to games that involve rules and taking turns. All these activities help children understand a range of mathematical ideas.

         Children need things to count, sort, compare, match, put together, and take apart. These opportunities will help children move developmentally from concrete representations of mathematical concepts to abstract.