Younger students need to experience patterning every week. They need to see the rhythm, the sequencing, the various possibilities. They need to be able to describe a pattern, predict what the next item may be, identify an item that doesn’t belong in a pattern. They can explore patterns in buildings looking at window repetitions, brickwork. They can explore patterns at a fruit shop where the fruit & vegetables are often laid out in regular, repeated patterns in shapes & colours & textures.
These metal fish are just one way to expose your students to looking for patterns in real-life. Which way do the fish face? Is there one of a kind or two or three? How do you know how many fish you need to put down before it is a recognisable and describable pattern? If one piece in your pattern is covered up, is it easy to see what this hidden part must be so that the pattern sequence is continued? There are no black and white answers to these questions but your students need to see this for themselves.
Metal Fish Patterns provides you with 36 small metal fish pieces and 6 sample pattern cards. All suitable for your 5-7 year olds.