The Effect of "Big Maths for Little Kids" Curriculum on Mathematical Development of 61-72 Month–Old Children

This study aimed to investigate the effect of "Big Math for Little Kids" curriculum on mathematical development of 61-72 month-old children attending kindergartens. This experimental study had a pre-test - post-test design. The sample of the study was composed of a total of 42 61-72 month-old children attending kindergartens of the randomly selected primary schools. In the study, "Progress in Maths 6 Test" was used to collect data. As a result of this study, it was found out that average Progress in Maths 6 Test scores of children in the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the ones in the control group. Purpose and Significance: The purpose of the current research was to investigate the effect of "Big Math for Little Kids" curriculum on mathematical development of 61-72 month-old children attending kindergartens. Methods: This experimental study had a pre-test-post-test design. The population of the study consisted of 61-72 month-old children attending to kindergartens within primary schools under the Ministry of National Education in the city of Ankara in the educational year of 2010-2011. The sample comprised of a total of 42 children who were at the age of six (n=21) both under the experimental group attending to GulenMuharremPakoglu Primary School and (n=21) the control group attending to HamdullahSuphi Primary School and who have not received math education before. In order to investigate the effect of the "Big Maths for Little Kids" curriculum on mathematical development of 61-72 month-old children, pre-test - post test control group design was used. To learn more about children and their families, "General Information Form" was used and "Progress in Maths 6 Test" developed by Clausen-May, Vappula and Ruddock (2004) and of which reliability check was done by Celik and Kandir (2011) was used in order to determine mathematical development of children. Children in the experimental group had been offered the "Big Maths for Little Kids" curriculum for 14 weeks, five days a week. In the control group, only the preschool curriculum was implemented. Results: For the analysis of the data, Mann-Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test were used. Significant differences were found between mathematical development scores of children in the experimental and control group in favor of the experimental group (p<.05). On the other hand, it was found that the difference between the post-test and