Patterns

As a teacher, math was always the subject that I struggled with connecting to literacy.  I could never find great books about the topic.  I usually just ended up making up my own stories (which my students loved).  However, there are a few math concepts that have some really great read alouds and one of those concepts is patterns.

Trudy Harris and Anne Canevari Green have collaborated to create two really great books to help teach the idea of patterns in Pattern Fish and Pattern Bugs.  Even though patterns are nowhere to be found in the common core for primary grades, basic patterns are essential for understanding higher math problems- because as these books will show you patterns are everywhere!

The books are both very similar except for one uses bugs and the other uses fish.  Harris, who is a teacher and wrote these books for her class, writes a cute rhyme that has a pattern like, "Up-down-around-around, up-down-around-around.  A silky silver moth takes flight near the lamppost, late at night.  Up-down-around-around, up-down-around-around, up-down-around..." Then the pattern will stop and you have to turn the page to find out what comes next in the pattern.  It is also neat because the illustrations have patterns everywhere.  There might be a color pattern, a shape pattern or an up down pattern.  It is fun to look at the illustrations with your class to see what patterns they can find.

These books have endless ideas for activities from creating your own pattern bug or fish to adding numbers to the patterns to see how patterns look using numbers.

Happy Reading!
Laura