Month 2 · Lesson 9 — Patterns Party!

Station 1

How to find the rule

A beaded necklace with repeating colours

Beads that repeat

Say it. Point to it. Then guess.

This is the trick grown-ups use too. When you say a pattern out loud, your ears hear the beat — and the beat is the rule.

🗣️ say it👆 point🔮 guess

Say the names out loud

Point with your finger and talk. Circle, square, circle, square… Your voice finds the beat.

Circle the part that repeats

The little chunk that shows up again and again is called the core. It is the heart of the pattern.

core = 🟢🟦it repeats 3 times

Start the rule over

Finished the core? Go back to the front of it. The next tile is the first one of the rule.

🟢🟦 → 🟢 🟦 → 🟢 🟦 → 🟢?

⚠️ Pip says: be careful!

A pattern must repeat at least two whole times. One time is just a one-time thing!

Station 2

Patterns are hiding everywhere

Found 0 / 6

Tap a card when you spot the repeating rule. Every card you find earns a ⭐.

A/B

Zebra stripesblack · white · black · white

⭐

AAB

Floor tilesyellow · yellow · blue

⭐

ABC

Garden rowslettuce · tomato · carrot

⭐

shapes

Bee honeycombhexagons everywhere

⭐

time

The calendarweek after week after week

⭐

growing

A brick wallstep, step, step along

⭐

Station 3

The Pattern Machine

⚙️

YOU make the rule. The machine repeats it.

2 – 4 tiles in a rule

Pick your tiles — tap one to take it back

Your rule

empty…

What the machine made

the machine is waiting…

Station 4

Pattern game: 8 rounds

🦜 Pip's trick

Say it out loud before you tap. Your ears hear what your eyes see.

Your stars

Right on the first try = ⭐
Wrong = the card turns red, then try again.
No stars lost. Ever.

💪 Too easy?

Ask a grown-up for a 4-tile rule — or make one with socks!

Station 6

Story time: Mira's Necklace

Tap to listen

The rule in the story

Mira's beads go red, red, blue. Can you say it with her?

core = 🔴🔴🔵

Grandma's box had beads as many as the stars.

She made a necklace: RED, RED, BLUE. RED, RED, BLUE.

“My turn!” said Mira. She slid on one more bead… and one more…

Now it went RED, RED, BLUE, RED, RED, BLUE, RED, RED, BLUE.

Clickity-clack, round her neck, the beads went all day long.

At school Ben said, “YELLOW, GREEN, YELLOW, GREEN — mine is a two-beat rule!”

Two necklaces, two rules, and one big question left over…

What bead comes next? Point and say the rule to find out.

For grown-ups

Teaching notes

Lesson 9 of Month 2. The math big idea is a repeating pattern: identifying the core unit, extending the sequence, and predicting what comes next. Speaking the unit aloud (and clapping it) builds the algebraic thinking that addition and multiplication later depend on.

Try this together, tonight

Sock pattern. Line up socks: striped, plain, striped, plain. Ask: “What's the rule?”
Snack pattern. 3 berries: A, B, A, B — then let your child hide the last one and guess it.
Body pattern. Clap, clap, stomp, jump. Repeat four times. Whoever breaks the rule does the next one.
Broken pattern. Make a pattern wrong on purpose. Six-year-olds love catching the mistake.

Words we use

patternrulecorerepeatnextpredictextend

If it's tricky…

Go back to physical objects — bears, blocks, buttons — and keep the core to 2 tiles (AB). Touch each one as you say it.

If it's too easy…

Try a 4-tile core (ABBC), a growing pattern (1, 2, 3, 4…), or a pattern with two attributes at once: colour and shape.

Lesson checklist

☐ Says the core aloud while pointing
☐ Finds the next 2 tiles in a sequence
☐ Invents an original rule of 2+ tiles
☐ Explains why the answer fits
☐ Spots a pattern in the real world

Where this goes next

Patterns become skip-counting (2, 4, 6), then place value, then times tables. Lesson 10 turns the same “what comes next?” eye onto shape attributes — sides, corners, curves.

STAR
PATTERN
FINDER ✓

Lesson 9 · done

Certificate of Pattern-Finding

Tap ⭐ stars around the page. Collect 6 to press the stamp.

…

0 stars so far

Your learning trail

Lesson 7 ✓Counting to 20 Lesson 8 ✓More & Less Lesson 9 · nowPatterns Party 🎉 Lesson 10 →Shape Detective Lesson 11 →Time o'Clock Lesson 12 →My First Graph

What comes next?

Pip the Parrot

Find the rule