Technologies for lifelong kindergarten

In kindergartens and early-elementary classrooms, manipulative materials (s uch as Cuisenaire Rods and Pattern Blocks) play an important role in childr ens learning, enabling children to explore mathematical and scientific conc epts (such as number, shape, and size) through direct manipulation of physi cal objects. But as children grow older, and learn more advanced concepts, the educational focus shifts away from direct manipulation to more abstract formal methods. This paper discusses a new generation of computationally e nhanced manipulative materials, called digital manipulatives, designed to r adically change this traditional progression. These new manipulatives (such as programmable building bricks and communicating beads) aim to enable chi ldren to continue to learn with a kindergarten approach even as they grow o lderand also to enable young children to learn concepts (in particular, sys tems concepts such as feedback and emergence) that were previously consider ed too advanced for them.