Numbers as Drawings

Kailyn came over to where a group of children was playing the Number Matching Lotto game with a teacher. She quickly picked up the rules of the games, and started identifying the number cards when they came up. First she drew a zero card, a very tricky card. "It's an O," she said. "O is zero."
Her next card was a seven. She counted the objects on the card, correctly stating the total as seven. "Its seven!" she declared.
In that proofs are the essense of math, her teacher asked, "How do you know?"
Kailyn traced a seven in the air, explaining, "Because a seven looks like this!"
She continued playing until she filled her card, and beamed when her friends sang her the BINGO song.
Kailyn has developed several important math concepts. She knows that one object corresponds to one number, is recognizing several numbers, and is even able to write some numbers when shown an example!