George is in Lego building mode lately. He’s really getting the hang of the ‘big boy’ Legos and builds constantly!
He is still getting the hang of following directions to build a set. He’s only 4, so he still has a lot to learn.
George has shocked me though recently that he understands patterns. He points them out to me a lot. Even abstractly when we talk about something like taking turns. He really grasps ABAB patterns!
When I sat down to build Legos with him one afternoon I noticed a small tower of Legos in a pattern. I pointed it out to George and he said he wanted to keep it. I suggested building onto it, but he couldn’t find any more of those colors to continue the pattern. So I looked around to find more for him and he built onto the tower in a pattern.
While he made his pattern, I started another one since he seemed so excited about patterns. This time I pushed him a little bit, doing an ABC pattern.
I started the pattern tower with 5 blocks in an ABC pattern: yellow, white, red.
I kept finding the correct colored blocks (my kids have a hard time with finding blocks, do yours?) while he built and built, telling me the colors of the pattern.
I’d keep poking him too:
What colors comes next?
Then what?
He struggled a little bit a couple of times. I’d then go through the pattern with him and he’d find his mistake right away!
We did several patterns including an AABAAB and an AABBAABB.
He added them to his ‘police station’ that he’s been working on.
Then he wanted to count how tall his towers were which was also great one to one correspondence practice for him!
We did patterning with Legos with Henry a couple of years ago too. See how he did it below and look at George at the end! My! Time has gone by fast!
Henry’s patterns from Duplo blocks
Using Legos (or other blocks for that matter) to make patterns have been on my mind since I collected a bunch of ideas for blocks, and found Rockabye Butterfly’s Lego patterning activity.
So, one day when the boys and I were playing with our Legos, I started creating a pattern (An AAB pattern, I’ve been told by Henry’s preschool teacher that he’s understanding patterns, so I didn’t want to do just ABAB. A year ago was a different story though.).
I casually talked about what I was doing while the boys were still doing their own thing.
“Yellow, yellow, red. Yellow, yellow, red.”
“I’m making a pattern…”
“Yellow, yellow… what comes next?”
After a little bit, Henry started answering, “Red!”
So, I handed him my block pattern tower and asked him to keep the pattern going. Leading him along the way, saying the pattern over and over and asking what comes next.
He added to it, continuing the pattern well… until…
Well, he changed it up a bit and I asked if that’s what comes next in the pattern….
Henry’s response:
“This city has gone crazy!”
Don’t ask me. I don’t know.
But, what I found that was really interesting was that when he did this, he continued his own pattern.
Red, red, red, yellow. (Making an even tougher pattern, AAAB)
And you wonder what George is up to during our fun activities?
Check it out. This is pretty typical George.
I’m continuing on with this block learning activity over at A Mom with a Lesson Plan. After building his pattern tower, Henry did a little measuring with it too!
Check out my guest post over there: Measuring with Legos.
Creating Patterns with Legos on handsonaswegrow.com
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