Creating pattern units with the interactive applet can be beneficial for students who are not yet successful in creating their own patterns with physical manipulatives. These students simply make strings of objects, without order or repetition, rather than creating units that are repeated. Using the interactive computer applet, students will create and study pattern units of three, four and five squares. The interactive applet is designed so students may place entire units on the grid one at a time, or have the computer fill the entire grid. Throughout the activity, students predict, explore, and analyze similarities and differences between the repeating pattern units.
Students also explore factors of ten.
Before students visit the web site, introduce the excursion by drawing a 10 x 2 grid onto the board. Inform the students that you are going to color in a 5-unit pattern in this grid. Fill in the pattern using 5 different colors. Inform students that they will be using the computer to investigate patterns created when three, four, and five-unit patterns are repeated again and again to fill up 100 squares in a 10 x 10 grid. They will discover similarities and differences in the row, column and diagonal patterns created by the repeating unit .