Maths
Pattern & Relationships
1
Lay the groundwork
Practices to whakaritea te pārekereke prepare the seedbed for all children.
Start by working with all the children in your setting. Create an environment that can support children to build skills related to Pattern & Relationships.
- Consider your current environment and how you could make it better.
- Talk to others about what you are already doing.
- Select practices that will be meaningful in your setting.
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Why is this practice important?
Drawing children’s attention to the variety of patterns in the environment stimulates their awareness and interest in patterns. Patterns involve repetition and might be physical, social or related to time. An awareness and interest in the mathematical features of patterns such as repeated elements and regular structures, helps children enjoy and respond to patterns in daily routines, art and music etc. and to use patterns to investigate and understand the wider world.How to apply this practice in your setting:
Take time to understand from children what they already know about pattern. Engage with whānau to learn about children’s experiences of pattern at home or in the community, including cultural patterns and their meaning.
Learn about the cultural significance of a pattern or object, before exploring the maths features, e.g. explore the significance of kōwhaiwhai, tapa patterns before looking at the symmetry of the shapes with children.
Reflect children’s cultural patterns in the settings resources and regular events, e.g. beat and rhythm using rākau sticks, or patterns in Celtic art.
Provide experiences that illustrate pattern regularity, repetition and structure in different modes, e.g. visual patterns in natural materials, art, puzzles and clothing; sound patterns in waiata, drumming, clapping and chants; or movement patterns in dance, daily routines and action songs.
Share with whānau the ways that children experience pattern within the setting.
Why is this practice important?
When mokopuna notice each part of a pattern and how these parts fit together, e.g. the same feature might increase in size or be in a different position, then they are able to adapt familiar patterns and create new patterns. Using, adapting, and creating patterns helps mokopuna to use maths to investigate, problem solve and make sense of their world. Adapting and creating patterns can also support mokopuna to understand and adapt patterns in their everyday life.How to apply this practice in your setting:
Encourage children to experiment with a range of resources for patternmaking, e.g. uku (clay), harakeke, kitchen play equipment, tiles, collage materials, geometric puzzles, and blocks.
Model ways to recognise and adapt repeating elements in patterns for a purpose. Use the language of sameness and difference to focus on repeated elements, e.g. ‘black, red, white, black, red, white’, spirals sequenced from small to large.
Encourage children to be curious about and creative with patterns, e.g. ask ‘I wonder…’ questions to encourage children to predict, continue, extend or correct a repeating element in a pattern.
Support individual or shared patterning experiences over time, that might include large or continuous patterns and reflect a range of designs that respond to children’s identity, language and culture.
Why is this practice important?
When children recognise how features of a pattern relate to each other, e.g. repeating shapes, colours, sounds, movements, then they are better able to predict, select, make or adapt the next part of a pattern. These skills help children to use and create patterns to investigate their world and to problem solve.How to apply this practice in your setting:
Provide opportunities for children to experience multiple modes of patterns, e.g. music, shape, colour, dance, and relationships among these, e.g. actions that correspond to the beat of a waiata.
Encourage children to think about specific features of familiar patterns and the relationships between these features, e.g. washing hands, then saying karakia kai before eating.
Model being playful with patterns, e.g. when grouping or sequencing objects according to size or colour, suggest regrouping according to an unexpected feature, e.g. texture.
Using a range of patterns, constructed with different materials or represented in different ways, foster working theories about sameness and difference.