"Chips" ahoy!

This lesson will help children recognize, continue, and create number patterns, as well as find the rules for the patterns. The activities progress from concrete to semi-concrete to abstract.

A lesson plan for grade 4 Mathematics

By Terri Downing

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Related topics

• Learn more about algebra, hands-on, mathematics, and patterns.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• learn how to identfy, continue, and create number patterns.
• identify the rule for the pattern.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

45 minutes

Materials/resources

• overhead projector
• hundred number chart suitable for use on the overhead
• see-through chips small enough to fit in one of the squares on the hundred number chart
• laminated hundred number charts (one for each student)
• see-through plastic chips (small enough to fit on one of the squares of the hundred number chart)
• dry erase or wet erase markers
• notebook paper and pencil

Pre-activities

• The students will need to be familiar with patterning using shapes. The teacher should have given the students time prior to the lesson to examine the hundred number charts and to make observations about the hundred number chart.
• Prior to this lesson, the teacher should prepare several number patterns for the students to complete during the lesson.

Activities

1. Review with the students shape patterns. (For example: draw circle, triangle, circle, triangle or square, square, hexagon, square, square, hexagon.) Put a few on the board for the students to solve as a class.
2. Tell students that they are going to learn about a new kind of patterning today - numerical patterns, or patterns using numbers. Demonstrate how to use the hundred number chart to complete a numerical pattern using the overhead projector, overhead projector hundred number chart, and see- through chips. Put chips on the overhead transparency and model how you will figure out the next number in the pattern. Some example patterns are: 8, 10, 12, 14 or 30, 27, 24, 21. (Be sure to alternate putting the missing blanks at the beginning, middle and end.)
3. Talk about how to find the rule for the pattern. Ask if the numbers are going up (adding) or going down (subtracting), and by how much. Model how you find the rule for the pattern.
4. Pass out the hundred number charts and at least 8-10 see-through plastic chips to each student. If you don’t have enough for each student, you can put the students in pairs. Work out several more number patterns together as a class. Circulate around the class to check on student progress.
5. Finally, put several more number patterns up on the board or overhead for the student pairs to work independently. Call on students to share their answers and to explain how they got their answers.
6. The final activity is to have students create their own number patterns.
7. As students master the number patterns using chips, they can progress to using the dry or wet erase markers to help them solve the number patterns. Students can progress at their own rate while still being able to participate in the classroom activities. The goal is to eventually remove the hundred number chart, and the students will be able to solve the number patterns independently.

Assessment

• The assessment can be done by the children themselves. On notebook paper, students can create number patterns that are incomplete and these can be used to assess how they create number patterns. After the teacher has assessed how well the students created number patterns, the students can trade papers with each other. These can be the assessment as to how well they complete number patterns.
• If students make errors creating patterns, those patterns can be used to teach a lesson on correcting patterns.
• A sample assessment is attached.

Supplemental information

I do patterns on a daily basis with my students as part of the math meeting. The math meeting is a daily review of skills that takes about 15-20 minutes. The skills reviewed include calendar skills, patterning, counting skills, time and money skills, and a problem of the day. The Saxon math series is an invaluable resource for the teacher interested in hands on, incremental math development. Their series starts with pre-kindergarten and continues through the high school level.

Comments

This lesson plan was designed as part of the requirement for the course “Teaching Elementary Children with Learning Disabilities” through Western Carolina University. The plan was developed as a team consisting of Terri Downing, Stefan Walters, Tara Wood and Carol McRae. Cyndee Leatherwood was a great help in reviewing this lesson and giving positive feedback and suggestions.