Imagine using Legos with a young child. You pick five blocks in the child’s favorite color—green—and count with her, beaming at the brilliant display of her math skills. Now, imagine a towel is placed over the Legos in front of the child. She, like many others her age, would claim that she doesn’t know how many Legos are underneath the towel because she can’t see them. While you may be perplexed at this answer, the train of thought makes perfect sense to your child: at this point in her development, she thinks numbers only apply to objects that she can see.
This scene is exactly what Herb Ginsburg captures in his latest book Young Children’s Amazing Math, an insightful and often entertaining deep dive into how young children understand math. This “video book” includes 75 short videos showing real children’s everyday math. Look at this video, for example. Whether you’re a parent, sibling, teacher, or just somebody who appreciates learning more about the wonder that is childhood development, this book offers a refreshing and compassionate look at early mathematical thinking.
Ginsburg has spent his career observing the minds of children—not just to understand them, but to elevate them. As Deborah Stipek notes in the book’s foreword, Ginsburg’s earlier work made Piaget’s dense theory of intellectual development accessible and digestible. In this latest book, he takes that clarity a step further, blending decades of research with modern technology to include video clips that illuminate children’s minds in a way text alone cannot.
Throughout the book, Ginsburg reminds readers that to nurture a child’s growth, we must first understand how they think. Take the case of one child who counts: “27, 28, 29, 20-10, 20-11…” While 20-10 and 20-11 are wrong, Ginsburg points out that this “mistake” is not random but shows that the child is beginning to grasp the pattern underlying counting. The child’s thinking should be noticed and nurtured, not shamed or corrected into silence.
From storybooks to songs, block play to estimation games, Ginsburg provides joyful, real-world strategies that help those who work with children nurture these skills in a way that makes math feel a little more like magic.
This book isn’t just for academics—though education and psychology students will find it invaluable. It’s for anyone, including parents, who desires to better support the children in their lives—and to be amazed by them in the process.
In a world that too often rushes children toward being “right,” Ginsburg reminds us that their real brilliance lies in how they think about everyday math.
Click here to learn more about Young Children’s Amazing Math and use code DREME15 to receive 15% off until June 1, 2025!
