In math class they have them count everything on their fingers! They add with their fingers, they subtract with their fingers, they check their answers on their fingers!
I think the school sees it as going "deeper".
The current educational theory about math is that children have to develop "number sense." (I agree with this in principle, although the way it is applied, they tend to assume that this happens around age 5-6 and they don't account for the kids who have it earlier.) This is regarded as foundational; and they are emphasizing manipulatives as a way of reinforcing "number sense." They don't want kids to have algorithms or memorize math facts before they have an intuition about what those facts mean.
I would like to see more differentiated math starting in K, but I don't have a major problem with this concept as an idea about child development...
DeeDee
