What comes nex_?: A lesson in patterns and sorting

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In this lesson, students participate in activities that deal with patterns and the importance of exploring data from multiple viewpoints. The teacher guides students through an activity at the beginning of the lesson in order to challenge them to think about patterns. Then, students work independently to create “parade” of animal cut-outs in various patterns. Finally students work in small groups to sort decks of playing cards and consider different was of sorting based on characteristics. Illuminations provides activity sheets necessary to complete lesson.

Students will:

• Identify attributes that determine a pattern.

• Extend a pattern and justify the extension both orally and in writing.
• View patterns from several perspectives.
• Identify similarities and differences among items or objects.
• Examine collections of objects from different perspectives.
• Use elementary number theory to formulate conjectures.

NCTM Standards and Expectations covered by this lesson include:

• Describing, extending, and making generalizations about geometric and numeric patterns.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

Mathematics (2004)

Grade 3

• Goal 5: Algebra - The learner will recognize, determine, and represent patterns and simple mathematical relationships.
  • Objective 5.01: Describe and extend numeric and geometric patterns.
  • Objective 5.02: Extend and find missing terms of repeating and growing patterns.
  • Objective 5.03: Use symbols to represent unknown quantities in number sentences.

Grade 4

• Goal 5: Algebra - The learner will demonstrate an understanding of mathematical relationships.
  • Objective 5.01: Identify, describe, and generalize relationships in which:
    • Quantities change proportionally.
    • Change in one quantity relates to change in a second quantity.
  • Objective 5.02: Translate among symbolic, numeric, verbal, and pictorial representations of number relationships.
  • Objective 5.03: Verify mathematical relationships using:
    • Models, words, and numbers.
    • Order of operations and the identity, commutative, associative, and distributive properties.

Grade 5

• Goal 5: Algebra - The learner will demonstrate an understanding of patterns, relationships, and elementary algebraic representation.
  • Objective 5.01: Describe, extend, and generalize numeric and geometric patterns using tables, graphs, words, and symbols.