Visual Patterning

Grade 9s are learning about patterning, and linear and non-linear growth. We started by using patterns from visualpatterns.org to explore how something grows.

We look at how the tree sequence grows. There are always 2 more each time. We can also see 2 vertical columns of “x” for each figure, and one lonely tree that’s always there (that’s the constant) and it will be the only thing for figure 0. This is the pattern y=2x+1.

We next made some patterns of our own, given figure 2 only.

It was neat to see how many different patterns they made. We put pictures up on the screen and analyzed the pattern rules of each.

Next we looked at whether patterns are linear or not. We used visual clues to build the missing term, and then looked at the first differences to see the growth. We made equations for each of the rules, even the non-linear one!

a good start for patterning indeed!