There are many opportunities for children to observe and investigate patterns in the immediate environment of their homes and their local community. These include patterns that have been designed and manufactured by people to vary the look of objects and to decorate the home. Printed patterns and designs often imitate aspects of nature and are inspired by animal life.
Practitioners should focus children's attention on familiar objects that display interesting and expressive pattern work. With this stimulus, the children can be encouraged to experiment and to use their imagination to produce their own patterns.
It is important to plan activities that help children understand how patterns have been created so that they can gain confidence in developing patterns of their own. The skills needed to reproduce patterns will be useful to them later as they develop mathematical thinking, because the process of repeated, alternate patterns lies at the heart of the number system and particularly multiplication.
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