Picture This: A Book Full of Patterns!

The purpose for this lesson is for students to show they understand what a pattern is and know how to create different types of patterns. Students will work with a partner to create different types of pattern (ab, abc, aabb, aabbcc) with various supplies (for example: tangrams, linking cubes, letter tiles, etc). After the pattern is checked for accuracy, each student will take a picture of the pattern they made.

Pictures will then be printed off after they have been taken. Pictures will then be placed on construction paper for durability. Pages for the book will then be bound together using a book binder machine. On a page in a class book on patterns, the student will then write what type of pattern they created and tell what they used to make the pattern. The book pages will be bound together with the book binder. Each student will then take the book home to share with their families to show what the class has learned about patterns and how they can take pictures with a digital camera.

Another tool I would use is to make a slideshow of the different pages in the book. The students would love being able to see their book on the big screen! We would also be able to share our slideshow with the different classrooms since I would save it to the T drive on the computer system at school.

By the end of the lesson, the students will:
-be able to use and operate a digital camera
-be able to create different types of patterns
-be able to write simple sentences describing the pattern they made
-be able to share their experience with members of their family and members of our community
-work cooperatively with peers

This lesson plan addresses the North Carolina Standard Course of Study objectives:

Math: 5.03 Create and extend patterns, identify the pattern unit, and translate into other forms.

English Language Arts: 4.06 Compose a variety of products (e.g., stories, journal entries, letters, response logs, simple poems, oral retellings) using a writing process.
5.04 Use complete sentences to write simple texts.
5.05 Use basic capitalization and punctuation.
5.07 Use legible manuscript handwriting.