Play and Math in the Same Sentence?

I recently came across this article: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/math-play-how-young-children-approach-math titled, Math Play: How Young Children Approach Math. The article explores how teachers can use play as a way to introduce math concepts to young children.

Some of the strategies that the article mentioned were  classifying, exploring magnitude, enumeration, investigating dynamics, studying patterns and shapes, exploring spatial relations, block building, math through water play, dramatic mathematics, and math through manipulatives.

The article shows that there are many ways to implement math concepts in a way that in non intrusive and that can be presented as a fun and exciting way to engage with them. Children, especially young children, can benefit greatly from this type of introduction to mathematics. I believe that a lot of the apprehension that children associate with math is that it is not fun. But it doesn't need to be presented through boring worksheets and tests.

The article gives a brief insight in to how teachers can promote math in everyday play. Some of which we have looked as a developmentally appropriate way to do so. Observing children play and intervening sensitively to discuss and clarify ideas. Also a key point the author spends some time on is scheduling enough time for block play and the benefits of block play. I have include a PDF file the outlines the development of children's mathematical skills in an age wise approach:

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/collateral_resources/pdf/ECTonline/MathandPlay-AgebyAge_01-02-05.pdf.pdf

If we can introduce math as a fun and exciting thing rather than an monotonous task that requires worksheets and repetitiveness. This may also combat the latter math anxiety that many people deal with. Its about changing the culture and the vocabulary and the way we introduce math to our young children. Math can be fun, it should be fun!

With the implementation of the common core I feel we are moving away from the model of fun and more towards a model of boring repetitiveness. This is how and why children hate math and get turned off from math. So I asked myself how we can change the culture, how can we make math fun? And I came across this informative video:

http://www.voanews.com/content/teacher-uses-music-to-make-math-fun-cool/1594457.html

This video is gear toward older students but it shows a teacher who uses music, raps, to help students remember math concepts. The use of music can help students remember concepts it keeps math fun and it is a change to the humdrum that math commonly is associated with. Techniques like this should be commonplace in the younger classrooms because children love sing-song, rhyming, and songs in general.

Teachers like the one in the video go above and beyond to make math fun, but if it became a part of math, to make it fun, in the younger grades the little things that we can do to just have a positive association with math can go a long way.