Skill shelf · order, sequence and rules · 8 activities
Patterns, Sequencing and Logic
Eight activities where the work is holding a rule: copy this order, work out what comes next, keep it going when nobody is watching.
A pattern is a promise about what comes next, and the youngest one here puts the promise on the table where it can be seen. Four beads drawn on a card, life size, and the same four going onto a lace in the same order. Nothing to remember and everything to match, which is the right first version of this.
Then come rules that are not drawn out for you. A shadow belongs to one outline and not the other five. Five cards go into the order the thing actually happened, and the story gets told back to prove it. Ten of anything trades for one of the next size up, which is one rule running two of these and is also the whole of place value, so both of those sit on Counting and Quantity as well.
The two at the far end are long jobs. The maze blueprint wants squared paper and a cleared floor. The loom takes four or five sittings before there is a square of cloth, and over and under, two hundred times, is a pattern a seven year old keeps going on his own. That is the point of it rather than the cloth.
Take the step below where you think your child is. A pattern card with four beads beats one with eight, and a child who finishes a short one goes and fetches a longer one.
The eight
Ordered by the age they suit best. Each line gives the setup, the play time and whether anything has to be bought.
- Pattern Card Bead Lacing Your child looks at a row of beads drawn on a card and threads the same order onto a lace, one bead at a time. 2 min · 10 to 20 min · beads, a lace, a drawn card
- Shape Shadow Match Your child stands a solid shape in a beam of light and works out which of the outlines traced on the paper its shadow belongs to. 2 min · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Story Sequence Cards Your child puts four or five cards into the order the thing actually happened, and then tells you the story they make. 2 min · 5 to 10 min · household only
- Clock Face and Hands Match Your child sets the hands on a paper clock to match a card, and the card says what happens at that time in his own day. 15 min, once · 10 to 20 min · household only
- Place Value Bead Bank Game Your child is sent to the bank for a number, comes back with loose beans, bundles of ten and bags of a hundred, and trades ten of anything for one of the next size up. 2 min · 20 min or more · household, or a bought set
- Bead Chain Addition Snake Your child lays a line of bead bars, counts off the first ten beads, swaps them for a single ten-bar, and keeps going until the snake is nothing but tens. 2 min · 20 min or more · household, or a bought set
- Maze Blueprint Mapping Your child tapes a maze onto the floor and then draws it on paper as a plan, or draws the plan first and builds to it. 2 min · 20 min or more · household only
- Cardboard Loom Yarn Weaving Your child weaves a small square of cloth on a loom cut from a cereal box, over four or five sittings, and it takes as long as it takes. 15 min, once · 20 min or more · household only
Most of this is card, tape, string and a marker. Beads and the continent map are the two things that get bought.