In the last post in this Math curriculum series I started out by explaining math for young children with 2 simple pattern activities to begin with.

For this post I am going to elaborate even more and am include 4 pattern activities that you can do with kindergarten age children. The truth is nursery school children can do these as well, any early childhood age works well with these materials.

The last 2 activities get a bit messy as they use pasting patterns.

1- Transferring patterns to a different form

This is a great time to use the unifix cubes if you have them handy. I mentioned unifix cubes in a previous post about making math fun as one of the few commercial math manipulatives that are great to have around.

You can do this with a group of children or one at a time.

Dump the cubes out and start clapping and snapping as we discussed in the precious post. The children can interpret these patterns you are making with the clapping and the snapping with their unifix cubes.

Of course this means that at this point you can only be using 2 colors, but that is fine to begin with.

You can do aabaabaab or aabbaabbaabb or even aaaaabaaaaabaaaaab.

After the children have made about 10-20 identical stacks, you can attach them all together and the children can snap and clap the whole pattern.

2- Pattern Block patterns

Using the pattern blocks you  can first have the children crate the same patterns that they did with the unifix cubes.

Before you begin this activity with the children cut out pieces of pattern block shapes the same as the real ones.

Have the children create new patterns with the pattern block.

Have them stand them up and give the children pieces of tagboard about  9″x3″ (28 cm x 8 cm)

Then let the children glue the appropriate pieces onto their tagboard following the pattern of the physical blocks.

3- Border Patterns

Using the pieces of construction paper you cut out in the shape of the pattern blocks, have the children create a new pattern all around the border of a piece of tagboard. Use the regular size 9×12W when they are done you can have them label each piece as in aabb or aaabbb or whatever pattern they have done.

4- Necklace Patterns

See if you can get hold of either colored straws, beads, or macaroni that you can color with1 tablespoon of alcohol and a few drops of food coloring (put in closed jar shake to coat and then let dry on newspaper overnight)

Whichever you decide to use, let children create the pattern they want by pasting the pieces down on a piece of tabgboard and then have them prop up the tagboard.

By following this pattern they can create necklaces with string you will give them.

If you are interested in takingthe concept of  patterns a bit further, I found this great video for kids that shows examples of patterns in real life that you may find interesting in giving over the concept of pattern to children.

There are actually lots of art activites that are done with rubbings to show children the patterns that exist in nature.