This week we added to our collections of patterns, constructing pattern snakes from pattern blocks and "recording" our patterns with shape cutouts with markers to add details. It was interesting to watch the organizational "patterns" of the children, from the "visualizers" to the "step by step" constructors. We played a game of "what's next" and the children independently paired up to challenge each other with figuring out what comes next given a particular pattern that they constructed. We read books that had patterns to them, and as I left out the words they would fill them in, given the pattern of the previous page. The children constructed their own 1,2 patterns in hopscotch mode, and some added the embellishments of numbers, then demonstrated their pattern. As the year has progressed, I am able to spend just a few minutes demonstrating our open-ended games and activities and the children make their own choices, choose partners, and work cooperatively or
independently until discussion time, when we gather to show each other our work. We are going to share our pattern work in a pattern museum, which will take more organizational skills!
We began our measuring unit with talk about shoes....how do we know what size we are? We measure. We used "units" of measure, namely interlocking cubes, to measure our own shoes as well as shoe outlines of some mystery guests...AND we made flip flops from the outlines of our shoes! Cardboard, pipe cleaners, and beads, and lots of individual creativity and fun.
We completed our Pattern Unit with a Pattern Museum. The first graders came to view and comment on work that we the children chose to share, and we were very excited and proud to exhibit our work! We learned this week that there are "units" to patterns, and that you can break a pattern into a number of units, or whole parts that repeat.
This week we added to our collections of patterns, constructing pattern snakes from pattern blocks and "recording" our patterns with shape cutouts with markers to add details. It was interesting to watch the organizational "patterns" of the children, from the "visualizers" to the "step by step" constructors. We played a game of "what's next" and the children independently paired up to challenge each other with figuring out what comes next given a particular pattern that they constructed. We read books that had patterns to them, and as I left out the words they would fill them in, given the pattern of the previous page. The children constructed their own 1,2 patterns in hopscotch mode, and some added the embellishments of numbers, then demonstrated their pattern. As the year has progressed, I am able to spend just a few minutes demonstrating our open-ended games and activities and the children make their own choices, choose partners, and work cooperatively or independently until discussion time, when we gather to show each other our work. We are going to share our pattern work in a pattern museum, which will take more organizational skills!
We made patterns, and found patterns, and read books that had a pattern to them. More and More Patterns! Patterns help us to know what will come next. Numbers are a pattern!
