I hope you aren’t sick of patterns yet…especially since this is all so new to your little one. There will be subjects you are passionate about teaching, and hey, who knows, maybe patterns is one of them. Not quite? Well, you cant say I didn’t try to persuade you.
Your child is going to continue with making any pattern of choice, but today you will encourage your little one to extend patterns after following an example, and make pattern arrangements without connecting the cubes.
I made pattern cards that I want you to print onto cardstock (for sturdiness) and cut out in strips.
Then you are going to 1) show your little one how to copy and extend each pattern and 2) include your child as you extend the pattern (“hmmm…I wonder which would come next?”) 3) allow your little one to copy and extend them on their own.
I attached a blank pattern card document in case you don’t have the colors I used OR you want to give them more to practice with in which case you can color your own 🙂
After your little one is building confidence, encourage him/her to make patterns with the cubes without attaching them together such as one facing up and the next flipped facing down. Additionally, allow them to explore patterns using household items or toys your child has such car sizes: big, small, big, small, etc.
This extension of the pattern concept will prepare children for seeing patterns extended in designs and later on, in numbers.
Maybe you took my advice and purchased some cubes, maybe you didn’t haha, but that’s okay, we’ll try to work with what you have. All that to say, today, I want you using different color cubes (blocks, LEGO’s or something that can attach together) to represent the movement patterns we have been developing over the last couple pattern lessons.
If you read the post “Math On My Fingers” you might remember the “I do, we do, you do” teacher strategy. First you will model an example of how to do the activity, then you will do one with your little one, and then you will see if he/she can do one on his own.
Pour out the blocks on the floor/table in the room you are working. Start out with a movement pattern. “I am going to make a pattern with my hands, can you join me when you think you know what it is: (snap, clap, snap, clap, snap, clap….). Good job! How many different motions did I do with my hands? (wait for a response) Well, let’s see, I snapped and I clapped…..so, I did two different things with my hands. So I am going to pick two different colors and I’m going to try to make that pattern by snapping them together and repeating it over and over just like my sounds (build a tower like this: red, blue, red, blue, etc.). See, if I were to read the colors it would sound just like my movement pattern: snap, clap, snap, clap. Do you think you can make my pattern with two different colors? I’ll help you 🙂
Let’s try one together with new motions and new colors.
Finally, can you make one up all by yourself?
This should be the sequence of the activity. If you have ANY problems, questions, or roadblocks, please
I’d love to help in any way I can.
But remember to make it fun, keep the duration as long (or short) as their attention span can handle, and practice this same skill over and over again before you move on to the next pattern skill 🙂
Following up on the “Pattern Introduction” post, here is an activity and some info on the next phase of introducing patterns….
Before we start, if you have been doing the rhythmic patterns I want you to practice some more, introducing the letters ABC.
So you might clap, snap, snap, clap, snap, snap while saying “A, B, B, A, B, B” because you are doing one thing and then another so you move to a different letter of the alphabet to name that movement, and so on and so on. This is due to the fact that universally movement patterns, color patterns, and shape patterns are often represented using the letters of the alphabet.
You can teach them this by saying “If I am doing two motions then I need two letters to stand for them so I am going to use the first two letters of the alphabet ‘A’ and ‘B’. Let’s try an AB pattern: stomp with the right foot, stomp with the left foot, but lets use the letters to stand for our stomping, ‘A, B, A, B’ while stomping left, right, left, right. If I clap when I say ‘A’ and I snap when I say B then it would sound like this ‘A, B, B, A, B, B’ but if I made up a beat with 3 movements then I would need the next letter in the alphabet to stand for the new movement: Touch your head, shoulders, knees, head, shoulders, knees…. ‘A, B, C, A, B, C.’”
So, the next phase of patterns is allowing some symbol (like letters) to represent the movement, but other than introducing letters verbally as we just have as a listening and doing activity, we are going to incorporate visual representations of the movement. So your child is going to follow a pattern, by looking at pictures, not just listening and following along with you.
Here are 3 separate patterns to follow, click on the image and print it out; see if your child can tell what movements to do by “reading” the directions:
Take pictures of your child doing other movements, put them into a word document in a pattern, and print. Your child will have so much fun with that!
Don’t write me off too soon! I have talked to a lot of moms of my kindergarten students who practically want to punch me in the face if I spend too long on this subject of patterns. They say “My child worked on patterns in Pre-K, and he (or she) picked up on it very quickly.”
Trust me, I understand, I teach the subject over and over again so I can also get a little burnt out on patterns myself, but as a teacher let me talk to you for a moment about patterns so you hopefully won’t roll your eyes with each pattern post.
When your little one learns about patterns he/she gets so excited and thrilled to practice this skill because it gives order and predictability to activities, and how things in life work together in general. After the concept of pattern is developed, children can predict that Tuesday comes after Monday, lunch comes after breakfast, and eventually they will learn that the number system is based on a pattern understanding that 12 comes after 11 because the tens place stays the same and the ones place follows a pattern of 1, 2, 3, etc.
So, the whole AB, AABB, ABC pattern lesson is a means to understanding the bigger picture of observing patterns in everyday life.
If your child understands certain aspects of patterns….GREAT….build on that. There is usually an aspect of patterns that can be taught to add to one learned.
First, patterns can be taught in rhythmic motion such as listening to a beat and predicting what might come next. Then, patterns are taught using color, shape, and arrangement. Then, patterns can incorporate a letter symbol. Then, patterns can be taught by extending all those skills with a higher level of difficulty. Then, patterns can be taught using numbers. Additionally, with these understandings, patterns can be observed naturally through everyday occurrences such as waking and sleeping, days of the week, seasons of the year, etc..
The main lesson in teaching patterns is that something repeats itself. So remember the “I do, We do, You do” teaching skill from the post “Math on my Fingers” today you are going to:
1) Start a pattern to a beat such as “Clap, pat (your legs), clap, pat, clap, pat……
2) Ask your child to join in; continue on for a minute or so. Then you are going to add the words saying “Clap, Pat, Clap, pat….”
3) “Let’s do another pattern using our bodies” Ideas: stomp, tap your head, snap, nod, tap your shoulders, flap your arms, etc.
4) Ask your child if they would like to come up with one for you or a family member to do. If your child does not follow a pattern, remind them that you want to pick one of two things that repeat themselves over and over again like the one you chose.
5) Practice variations of this over the next few days in my next math post I am going to add an extension activity for this same rhythmic pattern activity.
Consider purchase the following cubes, book (or a similar book) for the next few pattern lessons:
Before I talk about today’s activity, I want to bring some insight to the table so that you will know even more about your child’s development. If you read the math page of daily funwork, you will learn that today’s activity meets the needs of the earliest skills to practice….counting objects. So that is why today’s activity will not incorporate number symbols.
1. Find a clean sock, mitten, or something that you cannot see through.
2. Count out a group of 5 counters such as marbles, blocks, coins, etc.
Order some counters for future activities (if you don’t have any counters you can use):
3. Count out the manipulatives you selected with your child.
4. Invite your child to play a guessing game where you will place the “marbles” in the sock and then take some of them out. You will show them how many you took out and ask them to guess how many are left. If your child guesses higher than the number, ask questions such as “Do you think there are more than 5 or less than 5 left now that I took some out?” to get them to use critical thinking. Let your little one feel the sock to try to figure out the amount left. Take them out and count to check how many are left after each turn.
*If your child is not yet ready for this skill, if they are not guessing anywhere near the correct number after many times of practice, it is OKAY, use it as a counting practice activity 🙂
