Patterns can be found throughout the world, whether in a work of art, in a piece of fabric, or a field of flowers, and being able to identify them has a positive effect on your child’s cognitive abilities. At 2-3 years old, her spatial and pattern matching skills are improving as her visual acuity (i.e. ability to see details) and skill at comparing objects by a single attribute is increasing. Exploring Patterns is an important cognitive skill that not only supports math education, but also contributes to a child’s broader social knowledge.

A pattern is any sequence that repeats logically.¹ Patterns can be found through all aspects of life, including numbers, images, sounds, written and spoken words, symbols, ideas, behaviors, movements, and routines. By understanding how to recognize and create patterns, your child will be able to develop the ability to predict what should happen next and to figure things out by making logical connections between objects.¹

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Your child will probably start Exploring Patterns by sorting her toys by single attributes, such as color, shape, size, and texture. From there, she will become better and more efficient at completing wooden block puzzles and matching and sorting color games. You’ll also see her group objects by common color, recognizing that the apple and crayon are both the color red.² 

This exploration will help with your child’s understanding of organization. When she’s finished playing, she’ll have an easy time putting her toys back where they belong, knowing that all of her blocks go in one bin while her pretend food goes into another.² She will also enjoy grouping objects as a way to create order, so you may find her organizing her blocks into different sizes or color piles before starting to build with them.³ And because she’s used to her regular daily routine by now, she’ll know the order of daily routines (e.g. For bedtime: take a bath, put on pajamas, brush her teeth and hair, and listen to a bedtime story).³

It’s important that you support the development of your child’s Exploring Patterns skills now because her early skill in pattern recognition, along with measurement and advanced numbers, is closely connected to her eventual reading, math, and science achievements, from kindergarten through eighth grade.⁴ So go ahead and point out interesting patterns you come across during the course of the day or plan a fun pattern-seeking activity using her favorite foods, toys, or interesting new objects.

Play Tips:

Do you want to know how you can support your child’s development of Exploring Patterns skills at this age? It’s easy! Read on for some simple tips to incorporate into your daily play time together.

1. Model and describe how to explore patterns.⁵ If your child needs help seeing patterns among a group of objects, help her compare and contrast the objects to figure out what qualities she can use to match and sort them with. If she still can’t identify a characteristic to sort them by, offer context clues and model the activity for her to copy when it’s her turn to play.² Use her manipulative toys (e.g. blocks, legos, pop beads, etc.) to create patterns for her to observe and describe the patterns as you play together. Say something like, “Red block, yellow block, red block, yellow block. What do you think comes next?”
2. Incorporate the use of colors, sizes, and shapes into your conversations together.² During the course of your day, try to describe what you do and experience together and focus on the details of objects you see, such as color, size, and shape. Say things like “Would you like to wear your green jacket today?” or “Can hand me your round plate? It’s shaped like a circle.”
3. Explore patterns in real life. Make pattern recognition fun and relevant by pointing out patterns experienced throughout your day together. Look for patterns in the pictures and artwork in your house or in books, woven housewares and clothes, and jewelry. You can even help her strengthen her understanding of her daily routine by creating a monthly calendar together and showing her how to draw or write in her different activities and events by the hour. By adding a social purpose to your child’s learning, she’ll be more likely to develop a deeper understanding of how patterns are used and created.^6,7
4. Create patterns using music and dance.⁵ Music is the ultimate lesson in pattern recognition. Many music selections highlight the concepts of repetition and steady beats. To explore patterns through creative art and movement together, consider playing musical games that pair movement and music patterns (e.g. clapping your hands, shaking your hips, clapping your hands, shaking your hips). Listen to children’s songs that features repetitive instructions, like “Shake Your Sillies Out ” or “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” or play simple percussion instruments or use simple movements (clapping hands and stomping feet) to create rhythmic patterns.

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Developmental Milestones:

Has your baby achieved the following Exploring Patterns developmental milestones yet? If yes, check off all the skill(s) she has already mastered to date using Playful Bee’s developmental milestones tracker. It’s absolutely FREE and easy to use, just click HERE!

• Sorts objects by color, shape, size, and texture.

Sources:

¹Zero to Three. Developing Early Math Skills. Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. Retrieved March 19, 2014, from
http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/early-development/supporting-early-math-skills.html

²Maryland State Department of Education (2010). Healthy Beginnings: Supporting Development and Learning from Birth through Three Years of Age.

³New Mexico State Children, Youth, and Families Department, NM Department of Health, and NM Public Education department (2012). New Mexico Early Learning Guidelines: Birth through Kindergarten.

⁴Claessens, Amy; and Engel, Mimi (2013). How Important Is Where You Start? Early Mathematics Knowledge and Later School Success. Columbia University: Teachers College Record, Volume 115, 060306. 

⁵Head Start, Office of the Administration for Children and Families Early Childhood Learning & Knowledge Center (ECLKC). Mathematics Knowledge & Skills. Child Development & Early Learning Framework. Retrieved March 19, 2014, from http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/sr/approach/cdelf/mk_skills.html.

⁶Mix, Kelly S. (2002) The Construction of Number Concepts. Cognitive Development, 17(3-4), pp. 1345-1363.

⁷Muldoon, Kevin P.; Lewis, Charlie; and Towse, John. (2005). Because It’s There! Why Some Children Count, Rather than Infer Numerical Relationships. Cognitive Development, 20(3), pp. 472-491.

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Playful Bee

Education Team at Playful Bee

Playful Bee is an e-Preschool that delivers inquiry-based preschool learning from the classroom to your home. Our preschool curriculum was created by our talented team of rock star teachers. With years of hands-on preschool and Kindergarten teaching experience, they've developed a high-quality preschool experience that is convenient-to-use and easy-to-teach by you, grandparents, or your nanny at home.

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