Additional Ideas from Scholarly Journals

We have found a few ideas from journals that we felt would be a good idea to incorporate into your classroom while learning about patterns! Ideas from these journals will be added to the blog periodically.

Michael Naylor
Do You See a Pattern?
Teaching PreK-8 36 no6 38-9 Mr 2006

Digit circles
A digit circle is a circle with digits 0-9 equally spaced around the outside. Fabulous patterns can be created while giving your kids practice with number operations. Make up some sheets that have several digit circles on them.

Addition circles (Grades 1-2)
Ask your students to choose an "adding number," say 3. Starting with 3, add 3 to get 6. On the digit circle, draw a line segment from 3 to 6. Now add 3 again to get 9, and make another line segment from 6 to 9. Adding 3 gives 12, but look only at the number in the ones place, 2, and connect from the 9 to the 2. Continue in this manner until you get back to the starting point. Have your students try these with all digits from 0-9, and then compare the designs to look for similarities and differences. There are some striking patterns that emerge; for example, the designs are identical for pairs that add to 10, so 1 and 9 make the same design, as do 2 and 8, 3 and 7 and 4 and 6. The designs are created in the opposite direction, though. Ask your students to come up with ideas as to why this might be. One way to think about it is that adding 3 gives the same last digit as subtracting 7 and vice versa.

Color Cube Patterns (Grades K-1)
Children in the lower grades are learning the counting sequence and how number names relate to quantities. They're not ready to consider patterns in place value concepts. Here's a pattern activity using colors to develop algebraic reasoning. Without allowing students to see your pattern, place colored cubes in a line, perhaps starting with red, blue, red, blue, etc. Place a cup over one cube, and ask students to guess what color is hidden underneath. Try various patterns, and try covering up more than one cube. Children must be able to recognize the pattern and mentally repeat it to find what's missing. Looking for patterns and thinking about unknown elements in a sequence provide important foundations for powerful mathematical reasoning.