This presentation argues that statistics and data science can and should be meaningfully integrated into early childhood education through developmentally appropriate experiences. Rather than treating data reasoning as an exclusively later-school concern, the study proposes that pre-school children are capable of engaging in foundational statistical thinking when learning experiences are designed around their natural curiosity and everyday contexts. Drawing on the curricular guidelines for pre-school education in Portugal (OCEPE), the presentation illustrates how data-driven activities, including observing the world, asking questions, collecting information, classifying objects, identifying patterns, and representing data visually, can be embedded within existing curriculum domains such as mathematical thinking, scientific inquiry, language development, and project-based learning. The study identifies key challenges to implementation, including developmental appropriateness, teacher preparation, resource constraints, and limitations of traditional assessment approaches, and proposes a set of design principles centered on play-based inquiry, authentic contexts, active exploration, and process-oriented assessment. The anticipated findings suggest that early data science experiences not only foster statistical literacy but also strengthen critical thinking, numeracy, and STEM readiness, offering a compelling case for expanding the scope of statistics education to the earliest years of schooling.
