Recognizing and Continuing Patterns

In my math class, we do a lot of pattern work. Learning how to identify and continue a pattern is an essential part of mathematics. Working with patterns helps children discover relationships among numbers, practice addition and subtraction, learn to predict, and much more.

As parents, you can remind your child to look for number patterns in many activities throughout the day. For instance, they may see patterns in the street numbers of buildings on your block, or notice that the days of the week on a calendar follow a pattern of seven. You can also make up patterns of your own, and challenge your child to continue them. An example of the ones we did this morning is in the photograph.

Don't assume that your child can automatically see these relationships. You might need to guide your child toward the patterns, by asking: Are the numbers increasing or decreasing? Is the amount constant throughout the pattern?

We started today with a challenge - and after hearing a chorus of "Oh, this is SO EASY!" the room suddenly became much quieter as the patterns became trickier and trickier. It was so engrossing that we worked on this right through workbook time.

We also started mystery number puzzles using a 100 chart. This also required seeing patterns in order to come up with the correct number. More on those later.