Patterning

Today (and last week) for Counting Jar, we worked on patterns. First, I made a three-cube pattern (red-black-white-red-black-white). I passed it around the small group and had each student figure out what the next color would be to keep the pattern going.

Next, I pulled out the Counting Jar pattern, which was blue-yellow-orange-blue-yellow-orange. The kids' job was to copy the pattern exactly and them put their work in their own Counting Jar bag. Then, I had them choose their own colors to make their own patterns. Some kids chose two colors and some chose three.

When everyone had a pattern copy finished, we brought all the bags to closing meeting to check each others' work. As we checked each pattern to make sure it matched the original  blue-yellow-orange, we then added it to the tower. By the end of checking everyone's work, we had a tower that was longer than the width of our meeting rug.

We decided to count the cubes to see how many we had used in out long patter. I showed the kids how to break 10 off at a time. We counted by Towers of 10. We ended up with exactly 90 cubes. We also noticed when we placed the towers of 10 next to each other, we discovered a new pattern. The colors made diagonal lines.