Wednesday 21 June 2017

Patterns Inside a Circle


We are very lucky at our school to have some great resources.

Some of these may not be so obvious - like the big circle rug on the floor in my room. I decided today that we would use this rug as the base for our patterns.



So when the kids came in, they found I had put some materials in each circle. Some had pattern blocks, some had Cuisenaire rods.













The challenge - make a pattern inside the circle using the materials provided.

Here is what the kids came up with:



Linear Patterns








Bilateral Symmetry








Rotational Symmetry







Interesting the way the kids went about this. Some took quite a while to settle on an idea. Others made several patterns. A few wanted to make pictures - the Mona Lisa, a dog, even the clock was a bit "pictorial" before I probed a bit about the need to make a pattern.

There was very little copying - or "piggy-backing" on the ideas of others. Most of the students had their own creative solutions they wanted to explore. 

I was very interested to use this a bit of an assessment moment - how far had we got in two terms? 

Results - I was impressed at the spontaneity and individuality of the students. I saw examples of different types of patterns that we had explored already. I was also able to identify a few individuals who struggled to come to terms with the task.

This is our last week before the mid-year break. See you sometime in July.

Oh - and if you are coming to the AAMT conference in Canberra, come and say hello.












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