When many parents consider teaching math concepts to their children, they often think about counting, writing numbers, and learning to add and subtract. While these skills are important, there are others, such as learning about patterns and relationships that help children learn to be strong mathematical thinkers.
Learning about patterns–things or events that repeat–helps children predict what will happen next, an important mathematical and life skill. Counting, for example, is a sequence. Whether you count forward or backward, by twos, fives, or tens, you have to know what comes next. Whenever we say something is the same as or different from something else, we are trying to understand relationships by making comparisons using a single feature (color, shape, or size) or more than one characteristic (color and shape and size).
Most of the world, both natural and human made, is constructed of units that repeat themselves in patterns. If children look closely at the world around them, they will begin to see many examples of repeating patterns.
Ideas to Begin Your Exploration:
- Repeat a simple pattern as you build a tower of blocks that is red, green, yellow, and so on.
- Recognize and talk about patterns in your surroundings.
- Find and say repeated words and phrases in books.
- Copy each others’ clapping or movement patterns.
- Notice and talk about how objects have similar or different characteristics.
- Listen to a song or poem and try to define the rhythm or pattern.
- Sort collections of toys, laundry, and household objects in different ways by using different attributes.
- Sort game pieces by color before playing a game.
- Look at pictures of animals and make comparisons among them.
Any picture book that has repeating themes, ideas, or language is a great way to discuss patterns with your child. Ask, What happens next? to prompt a discussion. When you introduce your child to a book for the first time, look at the cover together and wonder aloud, What do you think this book will be about?
Books to Read and Discover:
- Jonathan and His Mommy by Irene Smalls
- Lots and Lots of Zebra Stripes by Stephen Swinburne
- Max Found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney
- Pattern Bugs by Trudy Harris
- Pattern Fish by Trudy Harris
- A Pair of Socks by Stuart J. Murphy
- The Book of Tapping and Clapping by John Feierabend
- Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young
- I See a Kookaburra! by Steve Jenkins
- Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells
- Hetty’s 100 Hats by Janet Slingsby
Looking for more books to add to your reading list? Would you like to pair these books with tailor-made activity ideas? For more ways to explore and investigate the world of mathematics alongside your child, check out How Many Ways Can You Make Five? by Sally Anderson with the Vermont Center for the Book.
Recognizing patterns is important in science and engineering as well as mathematics. A committee of the National Research Council has written a framework to guide the Next Generation of Science Standards, currently in development. The committee identified seven crosscutting science and engineering concepts, often called “unifying concepts” or “common themes” in other documents. The first concept listed is “patterns”. The Framework says in part, “…Noticing patterns is often a first step to organizing and asking scientific questions about why and how the patterns occur.
One major use of pattern recognition is in classification, which depends on careful observation of similarities and differences; objects can be classified into groups on the basis of similarities of visible or microscopic features or on the basis of similarities of function…. Once patterns and variations have been noted, they lead to questions; scientists seek explanations for observed patterns and for the similarity and diversity within them. Engineers often look for and analyze patterns, too.” (NRC pgs 85-86)
The Framework gives the example of the pattern of symmetry in snowflakes and flowers. Science activities often provide a reason to explore mathematical concepts.
National Research Council (NRC). 2012. A Framework for K–12 Science Education:
Practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165