Preschoolers as Pattern Sleuths

Recognizing and working with patterns helps young children make predictions, talk about relationships, and see the connections between math concepts and their world. Because the study of patterns is basic to all mathematical thinking, it is connected to other math content areas. Provide blocks with different attributes-characteristics like shape, size, color, number of parts, and weight. For children who are beginning to recognize and create patterns, limit the number of attributes by offering shape blocks of one color or one size.