The effect of motion-based activities on the early math skills acquisition of pre-school children

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of the Movement-Based Mathematics Education Program on the acquisition of mathematics skills by children in the pre-school period. The Movement-Based Mathematics Education Program consists of activities related to number-counting, geometry and measurement skills. The mixed method is adopted in the study. The quasi-experimental research model with a pretest-posttest control group was used in the quantitative dimension of the research in which the mixed method was used, and observation and video-sound recordings were used in the qualitative dimension. The participants of the study are the children who attend the kindergartens of an official school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education (MEB) in the Tarsus district of Mersin province. One of these classes was form the experimental group and the other was be the control group, and a total of 40 children, 20 in the experimental group and 20 in the control group, were included in the study by criterion sampling. In the study, the pre-prepared "Movement Based Mathematics Activity Program" was applied to the experimental group in order to gain mathematical skills, while the activities in the daily education flow were applied to the control group. While the motion-based mathematical activities were applied to the experimental group, video and audio recordings were also taken by the researcher, accompanied by observation. The educational activities implemented in the experimental group were carried out for 12 weeks, two days a week for an activity period. "Early Mathematics Test" developed by Aydoğan, Akkaya, and Özyürek (2020) to collect research data was applied to the experimental and control groups as a pre-test and post-test. Permanence tests were applied two weeks after the post-test was administered. The quantitative data obtained in the research were analyzed using the SPSS package program. Qualitative data were presented descriptively. As a result of the research, there was no statistically significant difference in the pre-test scores of the experimental and control groups, while there was a significant difference in the post-test scores in favor of the experimental group. Accordingly, it was determined that the Movement-Based Mathematics Education Program was effective in the acquisition of early mathematics skills. Keywords: Preschool, physical activity activities, movement activities, movement-based math activities, math skills