Children and Patterning Excercises with Beads

Why?

For the very young children patterning exercises with beads may serve as:

* a pre-requisite for reading and math.

* enhance eye-hand coordination

* increase concentration and focusing skill

* increase vocabulary and language

* sharpen the mathematical mind

How can you help?

Simplest Pattern

Keep some red and blue big beads in a bowl, some yarns with one stiff end.(I usually use Elmer glue to make one end of the yarns stiff and let it dry over night. I make several yarns like this ahead of time)

Arrange everything in an attractive tray.

Invite the child and show him how you string one red bead, one blue, then one red, one blue, one red.

Pause. Ask casually “What will come next?”

If he gets it ask him if he would like to finish it with the same pattern.

Tell him he can make it as long he wants to and then you'll help fastening it at the end to make a necklace or bracelet. Usually children like to make several of these for their moms, dads, sisters. friends, pets. So have plenty in stock.

Pattern drawn on a piece of paper.

Have a pattern drawn on a piece of paper which may be a step above the previous one. Now involve more colors or complicate the pattern

You may also ask the child to make the pattern first himself, and then do the stringing. In that case provide paper strips, marker pens with two or three colors with coordinating beads, yarns with one stiff end all in a tray.

Introduce a bead board with several attractive beads and some findings with large holes and string yarns

In this case show the children how you make a pattern starting from the middle and work only one side, say the left. After you have gone up to the 8” mark (if you want to make the necklace 16" ) on the bead board at the left side, you start to finish doing the right side as a mirror image. So that both side looks the same.

As you can see the very first exercise is appropriate for the very young three year one while the second one is more interesting for the four to five years range and the third one is probably for more mature students and children.

More patterning exercises could be done with other art materials like stamps and stamping crayola pens. Here is a nice example I found in a Montessori site.

Show children patterns in nature how one tree has all the leaves that are same,, similar, while there are so many other trees and they have different kind of leaves.

We can do similar matching exercises with sea shells or sand dollars.

Show them how there is a pattern with time. After morning comes noon, then afternoon, then evening and finally night and it happens every day. How there is a pattern or consistency in their daily lives. The more we maintain that consistency and predictability, the more we keep our promises the more they are able to trust us. This helps them to understand the rhythm in every day life and they feel more secured and happy.

After children and patterning check out more such articles in Positive Parenting or Parenting Education

or go to the Home Page for more option.