This week, we connected with our partner classroom, the Oak Lake Community School Kindergarten class, via video call. After a quick review of the student-generated guidelines for a great video call from last week, we focused on a patterning lesson. The grade 1s in my class were able to explain what they know about patterns and they helped teach the Kindergartens about patterns. I was pleased to hear my grade 1s explaining that “patterns repeat over and over” and the grade ones capably started patterns for the Kindergartens to extend. We shared patterns orally and using actions, then asked the other class to extend the pattern. Our classes agreed to use the non-verbal signal of a thumbs up to show if the pattern was extended correctly in the other classroom.
I issued a challenge to complete a follow up patterning activity after the call. The challenge was to go on a “pattern hunt” to find and photograph patterns. After a quick lesson on how to take a photograph on our class devices, students in my classroom worked in pairs or groups of 3 to find examples of patterns in our classroom. Students found patterns in clothing, on backpacks and pencil cases and around the room.
Below is the Sway presentation our class created with the photographs from both classes. We also included photos from our earlier work in creating patterns. Students were excited to share this presentation with their families during the school open house!
https://sway.com/s/RUmFZOfu0A5w5f3l/embed