Growing patterns
A story gives the first four amounts of a pattern in a table: shells collected, stickers in a book, laps run, a pyramid of cans, handshakes between players, squares of tiles. Each jump is bigger than the one before by the same amount. The student finds how many there will be at a later step, or the first step that reaches a target.
The key is to look at the jumps, not the amounts: in 1, 3, 6, 10 the jumps are 2, 3, 4, so the next is 5. The working carries the table on a step at a time, with the jumps written under it.
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What changes each time
- Jumps that grow by 1 or by 2 each time
- Starting amounts up to 12 and first jumps up to 6, or numbers from the story
- Find a later step (6 to 9), or when it first reaches a target
More patterns, sequences and logic practice
- Skip counting (Grade 1)
- Repeating patterns (Grade 1)
- Hundred chart: 10 more and 10 less (Grade 1)
- Number sequences (Grade 2)
- Number machines (Grade 2)
- Multiples on a hundred chart (Grade 3)
- Ordering from clues (logic) (Grade 3)
- How many to be sure? (logic) (Grade 3)
- Truth-tellers and fibbers (logic) (Grade 3)
- Logic grid puzzles (Grade 3)
- Take-away game (logic) (Grade 4)
- Cook it faster (Grade 5)
- Doubling every day (Grade 4)
- Bigger start or bigger raise? (Grade 4)