What makes a pattern?

What comes next — and how do you know?

In the first lesson of Patterns Everywhere, learners investigate repeating and growing patterns, spot mistakes, predict what comes next and begin to describe the rules behind what they see.

They also discover an important idea: more than one rule can be happening at the same time. A sequence might follow one pattern in its shapes and another in its colours.

In this resource

You’ll receive two printable PDFs:

Lesson 1 Handout

A guided companion to the online lesson, introducing the main ideas and giving learners space to notice, explain and create patterns.

Activities & Practice

A separate collection of activities for practising the ideas from the lesson, trying new patterns and exploring them in greater depth.

Learners will practise:

recognising mathematical patterns
identifying a repeating unit
predicting what comes next
spotting and correcting mistakes
describing a pattern rule
recognising that the same starting sequence can sometimes have more than one possible rule
following two rules at once, such as separate rules for shape and colour
creating and explaining their own patterns

The activities are designed for ages 7+, with opportunities to go further for older or more confident learners.

Use it with the online lesson

This free maths patterns printable resource accompanies:

Patterns Everywhere — Lesson 1: What Makes a Pattern?

The online lesson includes visual investigations, interactive exploration and practice puzzles. The printables can be used alongside the lesson or afterwards for extra practice.

☕ Free to download

This resource is completely free.

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Lesson 1 of Patterns Everywhere

Patterns Everywhere is a six-lesson Beyond Curriculum course exploring patterns, tessellations, symmetry, transformations, patterns in art and nature, and mathematical design.

Ages 7+ · 6 lessons · No prerequisites

patterns

Patterns – Lesson 1: What makes a pattern?