Patterns inquiry

Shrini was stringing pony beads to make necklace for herself. I thought this might be a good opportunity to practice patterns.
Me : Can you make a pattern?
Shrini: This is a pattern.
Me : These colors seem pretty random to me. Let us do Pink, white, green, pink,white, green. OK?
She obliged a couple of times and then resumed with random order.
Me : Don't you want to continue with the pattern?
Shrini: This IS a pattern, mom. See, Stripes!

Do you see her stripes pattern? :)

Simple Provocation : Rings and Sticks

The kids notice patterns around them all the time. It is mostly identification of a particular pattern like stripes, zigzag or spiral. But the concept  that pattern is anything that repeats or follows a definite rule is not understood by them.
I'm curious to see if they will discover it on their own, given the right kind of provocations.
So, I set up a tray with some colorful rings and sticks from a Hape toy and presented them a few images of patterns.
Sid tried to copy and build the art with concentric circles. He missed blue rings that were in the picture and didn't want to proceed further. So I suggested him to try zig zag. Immediately he found that zig zag has triangles in them. But did he notice that the triangles repeated? Alas, no!
The sticks then turned into alphabets, musical instruments etc and the activity came to an end.

Here is a short video of the kids working with the provocation set up.

What does NO look like?

I am sharing this little story to demonstrate the use of higher order questioning to open up and peek into how the little brain of a 3 year old works.

   This morning Sid and Shrini were sluggish to get ready for school. To pep them up I played soft Mandolin music video on IPad. This seemed to do the trick and in no time they were ready to put on their shoes. The below conversation happened just then.

Me : Hey Sid! Did you see the Mandolin?
Sid : Yes!
Me : Well! What does it look like? ( expecting an answer such as Guitar)
Sid : NO!
 (Means that 'I am not going to answer you Mom')
Me : (sarcastically) What does NO look like?
Sid : (after serious thought) No looks like ZERO!

Well, i am bowled. My kid knows Boolean Logic ;P

Now it is your turn. What does NO look like to you?

Pattern Inquiry - Patterns through Art Exploration

   Mathematics is sometimes called "The Science of Pattern". All week long we have been talking about recognizing patterns whenever possible. We tried to identify the pattern core in zigzags and stripes and tried to build them with Rings and Sticks.

    We created AB, AAB, ABC patterns with beads, made predictions of what comes next etc. But I felt like I could not take the inquiry any further. The interest seemed to be diminishing and I thought of setting this inquiry aside for later time.

    Today Shrini was working with watercolor and suddenly proclaimed, "Hey Mom! Look at my zigzag painting!". I rushed to look at the painting and found a thick, continuous sharp little red mountains. Amazing! She has painted a zigzag line just from memory without any provocation.
For kids this young, art and early writing skills are one and same. This ability to hold a pattern in mind and putting it on paper is a good thinking skill that definitely needs encouragement.

     Realizing the opportunity I wanted to take it further. So followed a few inquiries.

Can you draw stripes?

How about spots? 

Does one dot make a Spots pattern? 

Spots, zigzag and stripes pattern

I wanted to challenge her with some complex patterns.

Can you draw checkered pattern?

She was stumped by this question. So I brought out my iPad to show her some checkered designs for inspiration.

"Do I draw squares?" she asked.

Can you try checkered pattern with horizontal and vertical stripes?

Inspirational pattern

Shrini's checkered pattern

Can you try spiral?

She drew a few concentric circles and soon recognized spiral was bit different. After I explained her the difference she tried drawing a spiral.

Inspirational pattern

Shrini's spiral

She wanted more challenge.

Can you draw a wave pattern?

Can you draw a pattern with triangles? 

Again, I showed a design for inspiration.

She tried her level best to copy the pattern.
Here is a short video of her trying to draw these patterns.

Loris Malaguzzi writes in her poem "The Hundred languages of Children"

The Child is made of 

one hundred

A hundred languages

A hundred hands

A hundred thoughts

A hundred ways of thinking

Of playing, of speaking.

Today I got to experience one of Shrini's language - Art to communicate her understanding of Math!