What Are Repeating Patterns?

Do you think this row of crayons makes a pattern?

You're right, it does.

      A pattern is a group of objects, shapes, or numbers that are arranged in a certain order.

After every pink crayon are two green crayons. That pattern repeats over and over.

It's called a repeating pattern.

So, What Are Repeating Patterns?

      Repeating patterns are patterns that repeat a rule over and over.

Here are examples of repeating patterns:

      The list of shapes that make up the pattern are called the sequence.

      To add to the sequence, we follow a rule.

The Rule of a Pattern

What do you think the rule of the pattern below is?

You got it:

Rule: 2 circles then 1 star.

So we draw 2 circles, then 1 star, and then repeat the rule again.

Finding the Rule of a Repeating Pattern

Let's look at this example:

🍄🌴🌴🌴🍄🌴🌴🌴🍄

How can you find the rule of this pattern?

Just find the smallest group of objects that repeats over and over.

Does this sequence show the rule for the pattern? 🧐

🍄🌴

No...

How about this? 🤔

🍄🌴🌴

No...one object is missing.

Now, how about this?

🍄🌴🌴🌴

Yes. This is the sequence that's repeated over and over.

So what's the rule for our pattern?

Rule: 1 mushroom then 3 palm trees

Great work. 👏

Finding What Comes Next in a Pattern

What comes next in this pattern?

      To figure out what comes next in a pattern, first find its rule.

The sequence that shows the rule is:

🏀🏈

Rule: 1 basketball then 1 football

Use the rule to figure out what comes next:

We see that a football comes after a basketball, and basketball comes after a football.

Final Example

What comes next in this pattern?

First, we find the rule of the pattern.

Rule: 2 baskets then 2 boxes

So, what comes next in our pattern?

Yes. A box.

Let's add that in.

Awesome. You got it. 👏

Now, start the practice. Finding patterns is fun.