Play supports math learning from infancy to preschool and beyond. Let’s look at block play as one example. An infant learns about shape and size as she explores blocks with her hands and mouth. A circle-shaped block has round edges whereas as a square block has pointy corners. Some blocks are big and other blocks are little. Toddlers begin to stack blocks, first one on top of another, and then more sophisticated structures over time. They explore spatial concepts such as on/off and next to or underneath. In time, children count blocks. Or they make comparisons like “my tower is bigger than your tower.” Preschoolers also explore patterns – yellow, blue, blue, green, yellow, blue, blue, green – as they build with blocks. These are only a few examples of the many ways children include math in block play.