Young children’s self-initiated pattern-making during free play

ABSTRACTYoung children spontaneously create patterns during play. However, this self-initiated pattern-making has yet to be systematically researched. In particular, the extent of self-initiated pattern-making, the pattern types young children create, and the potential differences in pattern-making for different ages are still to be examined. Investigating pattern-making in natural play-situations, the study observed 84 children during free play in their early childhood classrooms. All arrangements that children created on their own accord were documented. Nearly all children engaged in creating arrangements as a self-initiated activity, but the total number of creations varied largely between children. A significant, medium correlation was found between pattern-making and children’s ages. Most patterns were reflections, but also translation-patterns, rotation-patterns, and growing patterns were created. Significant differences regarding age seem to hint at a development from creating repeating patterns with a simple structure to patterns with a more complex unit of repeat and creating growing patterns.KEYWORDS: Mathematical patternsgeometric symmetryearly childhood mathematicsunitizing Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsMiriam M. LükenMiriam M. Lüken is a professor in mathematics education at the IDM (Institute for the Didactics of Mathematics) in Bielefeld, Germany, since January 2013. Her research focuses on mathematical learning in early childhood, especially the development of early pattern and structure competencies. Miriam finished her PhD, which was supervised by Prof. Dr. Klaus Hasemann, in 2011 at Leibniz University Hanover. From 2004 to 2012, Miriam worked as a teacher in a Primary School in Hanover.