This article describes a learning experience designed for teachers of children in primary classrooms (K-3) who are taking graduate courses. The learning experience offers new insights into the different ways young children encounter math in their natural, playful environment. Through a hands-on workshop approach, the students engaged in firsthand experiences as active learners. This approach was based on the authors' work with the Connecting Mathematics for Elementary Teachers (CMET) project, which develops materials to help prospective teachers connect their learning of mathematics to how "children" understand and learn mathematics. CMET emphasizes mathematics from the child's perspective and directly relates it to the math content that will be taught to children. And what better way to explore how children learn mathematics than to return to children's earliest mathematical experiences with dolls, blocks, and puzzles.