Jag kan hoppa så här högt : en kvalitativ observationsstudie om barns matematiska lek, hur de lär och iscensätter genus

Sammanfattning: My issues were: ·         What does children learn about mathematics in their free play? ·         How do children learn mathematics i their free play? ·         Doeschildren practice gender intheir mathematical play in preschool? And how? This is a qualitative study with observations as a method. I have chosen to use observations as a method because I wanted to see what children were doing and not what the teachers told me that they were doing. I used structured observations where a scheme was used to help me answer my questions.  The observations were made in a Swedish preschool with 23 children in the ages 1-5 years old divided into two groups. Three different theoretical perspective where used in this study. The first one is Alan Bishops six mathematical activities that were used to analyze which mathematics children learn in their free play. The second one is social culture theory which is used to analyze how children learn mathematics in their mathematical play. The third one is gender theory which is used to analyze if children practice gender in their mathematical play. My results show that children learn about most of Bishops mathematical activities in their free play. I saw that the children learned about measuring, counting, design and construction, location and spatial awareness and explaining. I was not able to find one of the mathematical activities and that was playing. The results showed that the children were using cultural tools in their play, the spoken language and social interaction played an important role in their play. The result also showed that the children in this study practice their own gender in their mathematical play but they also practice the opposite gender in their mathematical play.