Teaching Patterning in FDK – Part 2

October 24, 2015

📌 Looking for my updated patterning ideas?

This post has been combined with my newest lessons, hands-on centre ideas, 2026 Ontario Kindergarten curriculum information and FREE printables in one updated guide!

👉 Read the updated Teaching Patterning in Kindergarten post here.

Hi friends!

I’m here to share with you how I taught patterning to my class this year!

Click here to see what I did last year.

Here is what I planned for whole group lessons:

Click on the image above to download my unit plan from google drive.

On the first day we introduced patterning and we created this anchor chart with bingo dabbers.

On the second day we watched a patterning video “The Bunny Goes Hop” by Harry Kindergarten (my favourite video for patterning!)

and we played the game Mystery Patterns! I would call students up and put them in a pattern. Then I let the students guess what my pattern is! I start with something easy like boy, girl, boy, girl to start and slowly make it more difficult if they are having success with identifying the pattern 🙂

On the third day I taught them how to play the game Fuzz Bugs Patterns on the SMARTBoard.

On the fourth day we watched “The Patterns Practice Song” by Scratch Garden on YouTube and learned that we can make number and shape patterns in addition to the colour patterns we have been talking about.

On the fifth day we went through the “Patterns In Our Life” PowerPoint and talked about patterns in our daily lives.

You can find this PowerPoint in “Patterning for Kindergarten: Centres, Printables and More” on TPT.

And on the sixth day we completed this “What’s Missing?” chart!

The students had to tell me what needs to go in the blank spot and name the pattern.

I got this idea from Mrs. Ricca’s Kindergarten.

Here are some centres we had out so that the students could explore patterning:

At this centre I set out 4 different colours of play dough and the students practiced making AB, AAB, ABC and ABCD patterns.

At this centre I bingo dabbed some sentence strips with orange, purple and green bingo dabbers and then put out these glitter pumpkins for the kids to reproduce and extend patterns.

I set out pom poms, ice cube trays and tongs for the students to create patterns by color or size.

We also used these pattern block pattern cards to practice reproducing and extending patterns.

We also incorporated some fine motor practice by making a ball of play dough, sticking a pipe cleaner in it and then threading pony beads through it to make patterns. I asked the students to use 2 hands at first and then to try threading it with 1 hand for a challenge.

We also had Pattern Match from Turtle Diary on the SMARTBoard as a centre choice for a few days.

In small groups the kids made these little pattern books with my ECE.

We used bingo dabbers on the first day,

shape stamps on the second day,

stamper markers on the third day,

And stickers on the fourth day.

You can find this pattern book, the play dough pattern mats and the pattern block cards in my patterning unit “Patterning for Kindergarten: Centres, Printables and More” on TPT. Click here or on the images below if you are interested in taking a look!

Some students also worked with me to create a reference wall for patterning.

We had AB, ABB, ABC and other for the headings. If the students made an “other” pattern they also had to write a sentence and tell me what the name of their pattern was for it to go on the wall.

This little guy made an AABBCC pattern!

We used these sentence cards that we added to our math tool board to help us write sentences about the patterns we made.