September 16 - 20

 I can identify and create increasing and decreasing patterns (Grade 2 Math)

What Is an Increasing (or Growing) Pattern?

A pattern with a repeated increase is called an increasing (or growing) pattern. Here are some examples:

1, 2, 3, 4, … (The term values increase by 1 each time.)

3, 8, 13, 18, 23, … (The term values increase by 5 each time.)

Increasing patterns can also be based on shapes or actions instead of numbers, for example:

Clap 1 time, clap 3 times, clap 5 times, clap 7 times, …

Only patterns that increase by the same amount each time are explored in Grade 2, but there are other types of growing patterns too (e.g., when values increase by doubling each time).

---

Describing an Increasing or Growing Pattern

When you describe a pattern like this one, you can say, “The pattern starts at 3 and goes up by 2 each time.”

3, 5, 7, 9, …

When you describe a pattern like this one, you can say, “The pattern starts at 12 and goes up by 3 each time.”

Students got creative with math manipulatives and practiced making their own increasing patterns. Next, we learned how to show our patterns on a number line. If a pattern starts with 1 circle and goes up by 2 each term, the jumps on the number line would look like 2, 3, 5, 7... Like this:

We used our vertical whiteboards to practice! Students were given the first three terms of a pattern and were asked to show the next three terms and plot their patterns on a number line.

Our mathmaticians were very engaged in their work in small groups on the vertical whiteboards. Research has shown that when students use Non-Permanent Vertical Surfaces, they are more likely to initiate their tasks quicker, are able to look around and have greater access to ideas for solving the problem, are more engaged, and spend more time actualy thinking about math (Peter Liljedahl). We are looking forward to making use of the vertical whiteboards in our classroom for math and more this year!