The purpose of this activity is to engage students in identifying the similarities and differences of solid objects and using these attributes to produce a repeating pattern.
This activity assumes the students have experience in the following areas:
The problem is sufficiently open ended to allow the students freedom of choice in their approach. It may be scaffolded with guidance that leads to a solution, and/or the students might be given the opportunity to solve the problem independently.
The example responses at the end of the resource give an indication of the kind of response to expect from students who approach the problem in particular ways.
Arrange these counters in a repeating pattern.
Describe your pattern and say what would come next if you had more counters.
Note to teacher: Students should be provided with 12 counters, buttons or other small objects. The 12 items should be four lots of three different shapes and colours.
The following prompts illustrate how this activity can be structured around the phases of the Mathematics Investigation Cycle.
Introduce the problem. Allow students time to read it and discuss in pairs or small groups.
Discuss ideas about how to solve the problem. Emphasise that, in the planning phase, you want students to say how they would solve the problem, not to actually solve it.
Allow students time to work through their strategy and find a solution to the problem.
Allow students time to check their answers and then either have them pair share with other groups or ask for volunteers to share their solution with the class.
The student arranges the set of objects into a simple repeating pattern.
Click on the image to enlarge it. Click again to close.
The student creates their own sequential pattern with the objects and is able to explain how the pattern was created.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/patterns at 8:50pm on the 26th February 2024