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 patterns. Engage with whānau to learn about children’s experiences of patterns at home or in the community (e.g., of cultural patterns and their meaning).
Learn about the cultural significance of a pattern or object, before exploring its maths features (e.g., explore the significance of kōwhaiwha or tapa patterns with children before looking at the symmetry of their shapes.
Reflect children’s cultural patterns in the setting's 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; and movement patterns in dance, daily routines and action songs).
Share with whānau how 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), 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 them 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 of recognising and adapting 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’, or spirals sequenced from small to large).
Encourage children to be curious about and creative with patterns (e.g., ask ‘I wonder…’ questions to encourage them to predict, continue, extend, or correct a repeating element in a pattern).
Support individual and shared patterning experiences over time. These could involve large or continuous patterns and a range of designs related 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, or movements), then they are better able to predict, select, make, or adapt the next part of a pattern. This helps them 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, and dance) and relationships among these, (e.g., between the beat of a waiata and corresponding actions).
Encourage children to think about specific features of familiar patterns and the relationships between these features (e.g., washing hands and 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 such as texture).
Using a range of patterns constructed with different materials or represented in different ways, foster working theories about sameness and difference.