Patterns

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

I am coming to you from our fabulous new house! The kids are playing {so sweetly} in the playroom, hubs is working on the thermostat that we can't figure out ;) and I finally have a little time to sit down and blog! Whew! I thought it might never happen.

We've been working on patterns this week in math. Did you know with our new Texas standards patterning is taken out!? Like, good 'ol AB, ABC, AAB etc.... instead, they're supposed to create patterns IN NUMBERS! But...to get there, we have to teach the basics first.

First I get the good 'ol rhythm sticks out and we rat-a-tat-tap different combinations of patterns. Then I build patterns with my students {boy boy girl..} and finally we get to play!

I found THESE unifix cube pattern sheets for free from Heidi Songs!

To check for understanding after the first day of introducing patterns, I did a quick formative assessment of my students learning. The only directions I gave were to draw a patten- I gave them free reign on which type and what they wanted to draw for their pattern. I cut all the names out so no one knew who drew what. Almost all of my students could create their own pattern! And the ones who didn't... were off by JUST a teeny bit. I love sorting examples and non-examples like this to post while we're working on the topic.

This week in stations we're going to be adding some more pattern cards to our rotations. This time, I want my students to create their own of a specific type of pattern. Snag these freebie cards up HERE.