Name Pattern
Age group
- Early Years (Age 3 to 6)
Curriculum Goal
Kindergarten: Demonstrating Literacy and Mathematics Behaviour
Recognize, explore, describe, and compare patterns, and extend, translate, and create them, using the core of a pattern and predicting what comes next (#18).
Related Links
Context
- Before students complete this activity they should have previous experience with patterns and constructing them.
- All students will begin in groups of 4-6 then will eventually break off to work on their name pattern individually.
Materials
- Name pattern grid (Appendix A or Appendix B depending on the number of letters in each student’s name)
- Pencils
- Markers
Lesson
- Tell students they will be using letters in their names to recognize patterns.
- Students with 4 or 8 letters in their name will use Appendix A (7×7)
- All other children will use Appendix B (8×8)
- In groups of 4-6, students will write their name in the long box at the top of their grid (e.g. “ZACHARY”). This represents their building block.
- Then students proceed by writing one letter of their name per box in pencil from left to right.
- Students will repeatedly fill in the boxes with the letters of their name until all boxes are filled.
- Students are then required to choose a different colour marker for each letter in their name (e.g. the name ”Emma” would have three different colours since both “m’s” would have the same colour).
- Instruct children to trace over the letters they originally wrote in pencil with the appropriate marker colour.
- The goal of this activity is to allow children to visually recognize the different patterns that their name creates.
Look Fors
- How quickly and easily can children identify patterns using the letters of their names?
- What skills do students use when identifying patterns?