The Leading Name in Early Childhood Thinking Math
CMS, Play Facto, Soma. Any teacher or director interested in thinking-skills math has probably heard these names. Han Heon-jo, CEO of C2MEdu, the company that developed these programs, has long focused on kindergarten and daycare classrooms, where young children first encounter math. Known as "Korea's leading developer of thinking-skills math," CEO Han has drawn on 25 years of experience to launch Ssutzpah, a play-based math program for young children. It's math play that children enjoy joining and that teachers can keep running consistently. We sat down with CEO Han to hear how Ssutzpah was developed and how it can be used.
Ssutzpah is an early childhood math play program in which children aged 3–5 build basic mathematical thinking on their own by playing with educational manipulatives. About 70 branch offices nationwide visit each center in person to check on classes during the early stages of adoption and resolve questions on the spot.
Han Heon-jo, CEO of C2MEdu
Graduated from Seoul National University, Department of Computer Science and Statistics
Developer of CMS, Facto, Soma, Play Facto, Plato, and Ssutzpah
You've spent a long time developing textbooks, manipulatives, and content in thinking-skills math. Ssutzpah, too, was released after a long period of refinement in real classrooms. We're curious about its development story and how your experience shaped it.
I've been creating thinking-skills math programs since 2001. I developed CMS, Soma, and Play Facto. In 2014, I founded C2MEdu and created academy programs such as C2M Class and C2M RAT, as well as a range of home-visit programs including Mathekinder. After years of building elementary thinking-skills math programs, one thing became clear to me: children who enjoy math in elementary school are the ones who encountered numbers through play before they ever studied them. But in practice, planning activities and preparing the right manipulatives and materials every time isn't easy. So I wanted to create a program where children could play freely and think deeply, while teachers' preparation burden is reduced. Ssutzpah is the result of translating our accumulated experience in thinking-skills math development to a young child's level.
The name "Ssutzpah" is interesting. What does it mean?
The name comes from the Israeli spirit of chutzpah: boldly asking about what you don't know and being willing to give things a try first. It reflects our hope that children will ask "Why is that?" and "What if I try it this way?" and speak their own thoughts. Ssutzpah is a program in which young children experience the foundations of math through stories, manipulatives, and games. Friendly stories spark curiosity, and children expand their thinking by touching and exploring with their hands and playing together with friends.
We heard you spent a year and a half refining the program through testing in real educational settings before launch. What did you look at in actual classrooms?
We had children and teachers use it directly at a university-affiliated kindergarten. We observed where children lost interest, whether they had difficulty handling the manipulatives, and what teachers found cumbersome when preparing activities. We also changed the look of the manipulatives from their early "learning tool" style to a friendlier design that children could approach easily.
We'd love to know how the play actually works in a classroom.
Let's take the 5-year-old activity "Dinosaur Race" as an example. Children move dinosaur pieces and compete to see who arrives first. It may seem like a simple game, but within it children practice counting and ordering, figure out how many spaces are left, and plan strategies to win. Play for other age groups works the same way. Before the teacher even explains anything, children start saying things like "This one is bigger!" or "Let's sort them by the same shape!" Playing with the same manipulatives in different ways leads children to think a little differently each time.
Ssutzpah is currently used in about 420 early childhood education institutions nationwide. Why have directors chosen it?
What we hear most in the field is that "children love it and teachers find it easy." If children don't enjoy it, even good education is hard to sustain; if it's hard on teachers, it's hard to keep classes enjoyable every day. That's also why we designed the manipulative activities so that even teachers unfamiliar with them can lead without difficulty, and kept the instructions simple. Because the program was tested and refined in real classrooms to address both of these, children's enjoyment and teachers' convenience, many directors who have tried it end up recommending it to centers near them.
How, then, can it help directors in actually running their centers?
I'd point to three things. First, through the online learning hall, learning continues at home, so you can show parents what children are doing. Second, teachers' class preparation burden decreases, which stabilizes classroom operations. Finally, open classes using large-format manipulatives are also available, so during parent participation classes or open classes, you can show children enjoying math play. I think the biggest advantage is that you can show "our center's own math class" through the children themselves, without having to explain it separately.
It seems it would also be useful for parent consultations.
Yes, that's right. When children enjoy math play at their center, they talk about it at home. From a parent's perspective, when their child plays and learns well at the center, they feel they "chose the right institution." Parents can also check what their child has learned through online activities, and since the child's activities accumulate over time, this is helpful in parent consultations. It's where they can actually feel their child's progress.
Is there anything you'd like to say to directors considering a play math program for the 2027 school year?
I believe a program becomes established year after year only when children enjoy it and teachers can run it consistently. That's why, in creating Ssutzpah, we considered both children's interest and teachers' preparation burden. Ultimately, I want to nurture a love of math during early childhood: the desire to take out the manipulatives again, try one more time with a friend, and attempt a new approach. Helping those experiences build up step by step over a year is what Ssutzpah aims to do.