Nursery World Professional Book of the Year 2022 Children are naturally mathematical in their play. They play with mathematics. Early years’ practitioners often struggle to make mathematics relevant and engaging for their young learners. In their play, children are naturally mathematical yet practitioners are often unsure about how to build on this or how this observed play ‘fits’ in with the mathematics they teach. This Nursery World Award Winning Book:  *Empowers early years teachers to see the learning in this play and to remain committed to play based practice *Outlines recent research on how children best learn mathematics *Supports early years practitioners to know why preparation works better than planning and why ′thinking space′ matters more than you think