Informal mathematics includes the ability to match one item with another item, as in setting the table. Later, sometime during the first years of formal school, the child comes to realize that five objects, no matter what size, no matter how spread out, no matter what the configuration, are still counted as five. This gradual realization, called "conservation" of number is an exciting transition and cognitive metamorphosis. It heralds the child's growing ability to use numerals symbolically with real meaning.