From AB to ABC
Start with AB patterns, which most children in Junior Infants can continue. ABB and ABC patterns have a longer repeating part, so children need to hold more in mind. The mixed set is a good check: every row asks them to find the rule again.
Make it physical
Before the sheet, build the same pattern with blocks, claps or children standing in a line. Then the drawing makes sense.
Irish curriculum links
- InfantsStage 1 of Patterns, rules and relationships: children explore, extend and create patterns and sequences.
- Unit of repeatThe toolkit explains that a repeating pattern is built from a unit of repeat with nothing random in it. Finding that unit is the key step on every row.
- 1st–2nd ClassStage 2 moves on to growing and shrinking patterns and number sequences, which these picture sheets don’t cover.
Algebra is a strand of its own in the Primary Mathematics Curriculum (2023), and it starts in Junior Infants with exactly this kind of work. It also links to daily life: the toolkit points to routines, like the days of the week or the shape of the school day, as patterns children can predict from.
Patterns are an easy place to use Irish as well: build dearg, gorm, dearg, gorm with coloured cubes before the sheet, then ask what comes next.
Summarised in our own words from the Primary Mathematics Curriculum (2023) and the NCCA Mathematics Toolkit.
