Patterning
Patterns are great fun! And an easy concept to play with! Some of the easiest things to practice are color patterns. Can they lay ten beads out by the color pattern of red, blue, red, blue, red, etc. There are so many different pattern combinations you and your child can make up and copy. We tend to use alphabet patterns both with the kids and when we are writing down information or assessments. Here are a few examples: A B A B A B, ABBA ABBA ABBA, AABB AABB AABB, ABC ABC ABC, etc. Beginning patterns can be done with anything and everything as long as you have more than one of the items. Here are a few ideas of things to use: Food items (carrots, broccoli, etc. are fun), clapping and stomping, beads, any toys that you have a lot of such as Legos, cars, that kind of thing, silverware, shoes, socks, clothing, and so on.
After children know the basic patterns I listed above we will go on to harder concepts. Two patterns that we teach and use in kindergarten include skip counting and the growing pattern. If you are working on skip counting, please note that end of the year kindergarteners are expected to skip count by 10’s to one hundred. (so that is the perfect place for you to practice). After that I would go on to skip counting by 5’s and then 2’s.
Growth patterns are a much harder skill but can still be fun to work on. A growth pattern has one or more of the items you are patterning growing in quantity. Let’s use silverware for an example:
Growth pattern #1
Fork
Fork, fork,
Fork, fork, fork
Fork, fork, fork, fork
Growth pattern #2
Spoon, fork
Spoon, fork, fork,
Spoon, fork, fork, fork
Growth pattern #3
Spoon, fork,
Spoon, spoon, fork, fork,
Spoon, spoon, spoon, fork, fork, fork
Growth patterns can be done in any combination you want as long as one or more of your groups of items is growing.
All of this patterning is leading up to one concept in Kindergarten. We want kids to look for patterns in everything we do in math. That will eventually lead them to see patterns in numbers, and hopefully make it easier for them to figure out number problems later on in school. Enjoy!!!