Exploring Patterns

Our first few lessons in Unit 10 are all about learning how to describe patterns.  

Here is a poster I made for the class. Students are asked to familiarize themselves with the different aspects of it.  

There are four things to consider when looking at a pattern:  

• What pattern do you see?
• What's one way to describe the pattern? 
• Can you describe the pattern in another way? 
• What are the next three terms in the pattern? (terms are parts) 

"And so on"  We call this the "phrase that pays" because for many children, they simply (and understandably) don't know how to explain that a pattern continues on and on. So for example, a child could write something like: "The pattern rule is: add 1, then add 2, then add 3 and so on." and that would work perfectly.

This phrase can also be used to describe picture patterns like the one in the poster. 

The "core" of the pattern is the parts of pattern that repeat.  In this case, it's yelling guy with a blue bow tie and kid with teeth.