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Modern Art Meets Early Math: Cuisenaire Rods, Neuroscience, and Project-Based Learning in the Preschool Atelier
Abstract
This chapter explores how modern and contemporary art practices can enrich mathematical learning in early childhood through the use of Cuisenaire rods. Traditionally designed to represent numerical relations, these manipulatives are reimagined as artistic and modular elements that link mathematics with visual culture, design, and embodied inquiry. When children engage with art-inspired projects—drawing on movements such as De Stijl, Bauhaus, and Minimalism—they explore concepts like symmetry, proportion, and pattern in playful, sensory ways. Research in educational neuroscience highlights that early brain development benefits from novelty, multisensory experiences, and emotional salience (Goswami, 2006; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). Thus, integrating art with mathematical tools fosters deeper spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, and numerical fluency (Mix et al., 2016). Projects inspired by artists such as Mondrian, LeWitt, and Kusama enable preschoolers to experience mathematics not as abstract symbols but as a creative, collaborative, and aesthetic process. In this approach, learning becomes expressive, inclusive, and culturally meaningful.
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