DeAnna Von Halle

Field Lesson Plan

Patterns for Third Grade
Teaching Date: November 24, 2014
I. Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is to serve as a reintroduction to patterns.

Students in Virginia start working on patterns in Kindergarten and build
upon that knowledge through the years. In third grade the stress is upon
recognizing and being able to describe a variety of patterns (repeating,
growing, etc) and extend them. This lesson will expose students to the
different types of patterns and offer them an opportunity to create their
own repeating and growing patterns. Creating patterns themselves will
allow students to better grasp the concept of patterns and will help them
to extend patterns in the future.

Virginia Math Standards of Learning

o 3.19
The student will recognize and describe a variety of
patterns
formed using numbers, tables, and pictures, and extend
the patterns, using the same or different forms.

National Council of Mathematics Teachers Process Standards

o Reasoning and Proof: Students will make and investigate
mathematical conjectures and use reasoning to justify answers
o Communication: Students will communicate mathematical thinking
during the classroom discussion, and will analyze and evaluate
peers by extending patterns made by others
o Connections: Students will draw on prior knowledge about patterns
and form connections to recent knowledge about multiplication
tables, addition, counting by twos, tens, etc.

Teaching Notes (directly from the VDOE Curriculum Framework):

Exploring patterns requires active physical and mental involvement. The
use of materials to extend patterns permits experimentation or trial-anderror approaches that are almost impossible without them. Reproduction
of a given pattern in a different representation, using symbols and
objects, lays the foundation for writing numbers symbolically or
algebraically. The simplest types of patterns are repeating patterns. In
each case, students need to identify the basic unit of the pattern and
repeat it. Opportunities to create, recognize, describe, and extend
repeating patterns are essential to the primary school experience.
Growing patterns are more difficult for students to understand than
repeating patterns because not only must they determine what comes
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next, they must also begin the process of generalization. Students need
experiences with growing patterns in both arithmetic and geometric
formats.
II. Objectives

The student will be able to correctly identify a pattern as a growing or

repeating pattern with 80% accuracy.
The student will be able to extend a growing pattern of numbers with
80% accuracy.
The student will be able to create a growing pattern of numbers and
describe the general rule of his/her pattern to another student.

III. Procedure
a. Introduction: (Visual & Auditory)
1. Begin the lesson off with a hook: Patterns are all around us! Use
student volunteers to create a repeating pattern (girl/boy). Ask the
class what type of pattern it is. If students are struggling ask them
what part of the pattern repeats. Have a student extend the pattern.
End by asking volunteers go back to their desks.
2. Make a second pattern. This pattern should be a growing pattern (1
student, 2 students, 3 students, etc). See if anyone can name this kind
of pattern. Prompt students by asking how much the pattern is growing
by each time.
3. Explain that we will be looking into growing patterns more on the
carpet.
b. Procedure: (Kinesthetic, Visual, Auditory)
1. Have students come to the carpet and face the projector screen.
Introduce the students to the 100s chart. They might have used this in
classes before. Explain that we will be using the 100s chart to find
patterns. Have the students silently think about patterns they see for
30 seconds. When the time is up, students can volunteer to share a
pattern they saw.
2. Model a pattern you as the teacher saw, to show students what you
expect in terms of a description of a pattern. Highlight or circle the
pattern on the 100s chart, and then write it as a problem with missing
pieces (6, 12, 18, __, __, __,). Describe the pattern as you saw it, and
ask the class for the general rule of your pattern. Ask if anyone can
extend the pattern.

3. Ask for student volunteers to point out a different pattern. As the

student explains it, highlight or circle the pattern on the 100s chart (or
have them come up and highlight it!). Discuss if it is a repeating or
growing pattern. What is the general rule of the pattern? Who can
extend the pattern?
4. Repeat this until students seem to have a grasp on the expected
procedure of finding a pattern, circling/highlighting it, writing it as a
problem, writing the general rule, and extending the pattern.
5. If time allows: Introduce the partner activity.
a. At desks, students will work in pairs to look over a 100s chart
and pick out a pattern. This pattern should be colored in or
shaded in on the 100s chart and the general rule should be
written at the bottom. When done, the students can write the
pattern on the back of the chart as a series of numbers with
blanks and trade with another person who is done. Each person
can try to extend the others pattern and find the general rule.
b. If extra time allows, or students finish early, they can find a new
pattern and use a different color, shape, or shading technique to
show it on the 100s chart. This can be written out as a problem
and shown to another person.
c. For an extra challenge, students can try to show their pattern in
a different form (with pictures, symbols, letters, etc)
* Differentiation: By working in pairs, struggling students will receive
support from partner. The use of the 100s chart serves as an
instructional support for students who may struggle with number
sense. Students can visually see patterns in addition to understanding
the concept behind them. Students who have a firm grasp on patterns
and numbers will be able to venture off the 100s chart to create larger
and more challenging patterns or recreate a number pattern in a
different form (with pictures, letters, symbols, etc)
c. Summary:
1. If time allows, ask for student volunteers to share their growing pattern
with the class. Solve collectively.
2. Collect the 100s charts with problems on the back for evaluation.
3. Ask if anyone in the class can define growing pattern and repeating
pattern
4. Thank the class for their excellent hard work and encourage them to
keep looking for patterns as they walk to lunch and are at home later!
IV. Materials

100s charts (at least 1 per student)

Page protector for demo 100s chart

Dry erase marker and eraser

Pencils
Different colored markers
Blank paper

V. Evaluation Part A
This lesson will involve general checks for understanding, as it is an
introductory lesson to a new topic. Information collected on each student
from this lesson would be used to guide small group instruction in the
coming weeks and even individualized lessons for struggling students and
advanced students.
General checks will be done during the group activity, when calling on
students to contribute to the discussion, and when partners are exploring the
100s chart together.
Rubric for 100s chart patterns:
Above and Beyond Students worked together to find a growing pattern,
the pattern is clearly noted on the 100s chart and is written out in problem
form (1, 2, 3 OR 1, __, 3, 4); Students are able to justify the general rule of
the problem and extend it.
Target Students have highlighted a growing pattern on the 100s chart.
They are able to justify a general rule for the pattern and extend it.
Below Target Students have noted patterns that do not make sense or are
incorrect. They are not able to justify a general rule for the pattern they
have created. They cannot properly extend the pattern.
VII. Evaluation Part B
Did the students meet your objectives? How did you know?
The students partially met my objectives. Participation during the group
lesson was excellent. I made a conscious effort to provide long wait time and
call on students I hadnt heard from yet. Students were excited to point out
patterns they saw and made connections to multiplication. Students
answered correctly during whole group about 75% of the time. During the
partner activity, some groups got a little confused or distracted. Time did not
allow students to make problems for each other, they simply noted patterns
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and told the general rule of the patterns. Based on the 100s charts I
collected about 40% of the partner groups have a firm grasp on patterns,
finding the general rule, and extending them. About 40% of the partner
groups are using but confusing some of the strategies and need some more
time with patterns. The remaining 20% exhibited little or no knowledge and
understanding of patterns and require additional time with the teacher to
review growing patterns, finding the general rule for the pattern, and how to
extend a pattern. I was happy with these results, as it was an introductory
lesson.
Did your lesson accommodate/address the needs of all your learners?
Having partners definitely helped some of the students who needed a little
extra help figuring out what was expected. Some students recreated patterns
we had already identified and got more experience with them, others who
were ready to move on to find more complex patterns were free to do so.
What were the strengths of this lesson? What were the weaknesses?
One of the strengths of the lesson was that I arranged beforehand with the
teacher for permission to move student clips on the behavior chart. In
previous lessons I have had trouble managing the chatter and getting the
attention of all students. This coordination with the teacher gave me a little
more power and got the students attention right away. Beginning the lesson
with student volunteers to make patters of people also caught the attention
of the class and got the students to activate prior knowledge about patterns.
I also asked the teacher for help with selecting partners for the activity. Her
insight into which students work well with each other and which students
would challenge each other was vital to the success of the partner activity. A
weakness of the lesson was that I ran out of time. I rushed through the
directions for partner activities and wish I had been able to slow down and be
more explicit in my directions. I also ran out of time for students to create
problems for each other, though we got to do this as a whole group for a few
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patterns. Another weakness was that I did not challenge students to solve
beyond the next two, or three numbers in a pattern, though that could be an
additional lesson in the future.
How would you change the lesson if you could teach it again? How would you
follow up the lesson if this were your classroom?
Next time I teach the lesson I will be sure to watch the clock and manage
time so that I am able to explain the expectations and intended outcomes of
the partner activity more explicitly. If students need the additional time in
the group lesson, I will break the lesson into two parts and return to the
partner activity later in the day or the following day. If this were my
classroom, I would have followed up the lesson with more pattern activities. I
would direct the class to look for patterns in everything during this unit:
language, dance, art, music, and the world outside the classroom. I love
linking the subjects together and patterns are all around us, they exist in
science, art, and literature. I know the class is studying Ancient Mali right
now and it would be fun to make a lesson that looks for patterns in Mali
textiles. I would also be sure to introduce students to the idea that not all
growing patterns start at 1 and go up. I would expose them to problems that
start with high numbers, or patterns that actually shrink (though are still
referred to as growing patterns).