A repeating pattern is a sequence where a core unit repeats over and over, such as red-blue-red-blue (AB pattern) or circle-square-triangle-circle-square-triangle (ABC pattern). Children learn to identify, extend, and create patterns. Recognizing patterns is a foundational algebraic thinking skill.
Use colored cubes, clapping rhythms, and body movements. Ask children to 'read' the pattern aloud, identify the core unit, and predict what comes next. Have them create their own patterns.
A pattern is something that repeats in a predictable way. Look at this sequence: red, blue, red, blue, red, blue. It keeps going the same way over and over. The part that repeats — "red, blue" — is called the core unit. Once you find the core unit, you can predict what comes next, no matter how long the pattern gets.
An AB pattern has two things that trade off: A, then B, then A, then B, and so on. Red-blue-red-blue is an AB pattern. Clap-stomp-clap-stomp is also an AB pattern. Even though one uses colors and the other uses movements, they have the same shape — two things taking turns. An ABC pattern has three things in the core: circle, square, triangle, circle, square, triangle. Now three things rotate, and you need to see all three before the unit repeats.
The secret to extending a pattern is to find the core unit first, not just look at what comes last. Suppose a pattern ends with: red, blue, red. What comes next? If you only looked at the last thing (red) and said "red again," you'd be wrong. You need to find the core unit — red, blue — and see where you are in it. After the second red, the core starts over, so blue comes next.
Patterns show up everywhere: in music (verse-chorus-verse), in nature (petals on a flower, stripes on a zebra), and in numbers (2, 4, 6, 8 — the core unit is "add 2"). Learning to spot the core unit and predict what comes next is the beginning of the mathematical idea of algebraic thinking — noticing structure and using it to make predictions.