Number patterns - what use are they anyway?

Maths in the early years is a lot of playing with numbers to discover what they do - turn them this way and that, add 10, take 5, make it as big as you can, what happens if... 

Essentially it's about patterns. Recognising number patterns is an important problem-solving skill. We want our children to see a pattern when they look at examples because they can then use that pattern to generalise and predict in another circumstance. Transferring the play to mathematical understanding is the goal.

Parents often ask how they can help their children with mathematical understanding. This is often prefaced with something along the lines of 'I couldn't do maths...' But everyone can play with patterns. They can be fun and creative and lead to every child finding mathematics accessible and enjoyable.

Here are some examples our Year 2s and Year 3s are playing with at the moment.

 Fluency, understanding, reasoning and problem solving with patterns like this is expected by mid Term 2 for all Year 3 students.