Elementos da natureza como um campo de experiências matemáticas na educação infantil

Abstract

Nature is something intriguing to children's curiosity. Butterflies, ants taking food to the anthill, birds, pebbles, sand, tree leaves, and branches are elements that draw their attention. In many schools in the Amazon, it is observed that these elements are always present in games, and children express their ideas, raise hypotheses, and build their own concepts about them. The possibilities of, through interaction with these elements, being able to build situations that provide mathematical experiences for children motivated us to conduct this research whose general theme is mathematical learning in Early Childhood Education, and the object of study are the elements of nature as enhancers of this learning, which were outlined based on reflections arising from discussions held within the scope of the Study and Research Group on Mathematics Education and Technologies (Complexus). This research was developed in a municipal Early Childhood Education school, located in the city of Juruti, state of Pará, in which we had the participation of a Kindergarten II class (infantile 5), composed of twenty small children. The chosen research problem was: how can elements of nature constitute a field of mathematical experiences in Early Childhood Education? As a result, we developed the general objective of understanding how elements of nature can constitute a field of mathematical experiences in Early Childhood Education. In methodological terms, this is qualitative research carried out from the perspective of Yin (2016) and González Rey (2010), in which direct and participant observations, documentary analysis and a pedagogical workshop were used to construct data, the results of which were analyzed through triangulation. The theoretical basis that underpinned the reflections is based on the ideas of authors who discuss learning from different perspectives, such as Vygotsky (1925), Morin (2007, 2014), Ausubel (1982), Fonseca (2014, 2018), Mello (2009), Costa and Ghedin, (2022). The results obtained indicate that children's interaction with natural elements such as stones, flowers, fruits, leaves, branches, insects, etc., arouse curiosity and open cognitive possibilities for the construction of mathematical concepts related to quantities and measurements, in addition to contributing to the development of reasoning and problem-solving. Thus, it can be said that the results achieved contribute to reflections on children's learning of mathematical concepts, expanding interests, providing opportunities for interaction with different elements in order to arouse curiosity and consequently the construction of knowledge based on investigation, the creation of hypotheses and actions of testing, relating, reflecting, creating and recreating. Although it was not an explicit interest of the research, such results can also support teacher training by presenting methodological possibilities that can inspire new practices based on experiencing and exploring elements of nature as contexts for the construction of new knowledge. Keywords: Elements of Nature. Mathematical Experiments. Child education.