Three-year-old Temi approaches an adult. She is proudly holding a drawing in front of her. 'That's an interesting picture, Temi. Do you want to tell me about it?' Temi replies, 'It's a pattern.' Every practitioner will have had similar conversations at some point in their working life - and usually when a child identifies their effort as being a pattern they are showing a non-representational drawing. It's not a house, or a dog, it's a pattern.
But what does pattern actually mean? How should we respond? What should we provide to help children come to an enhanced understanding of pattern? The focus here is on visual and mathematical patterns. In a follow-up article, there will be a look at the pattern of language, movement and sound.
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