Finding Patterns in a Lokta Paper Blank Book

Written as part of the Count 10, Read 10 series.

For my 40th birthday, I bought myself this beautiful Lokta paper book from a fabulous little store in the Houston Heights called Write Now!

It has circles on it – one of my “things.” I love circles. But then I saw how the colors were laid out.

“Holy cow! This is a teaching opportunity!” I thought.

And it got even better at the Texas Home School Coalition’s convention this last week. I shared it with former math teacher and now-homeschooler Sharon Brantley and she saw even more goodies in it!

You can use it to teach math!

Anything that has more than one aspect/characteristic/color (pretty much everything) can be checked for patterns. Patterns are an essential, perhaps even the most important, building block for mathematical thinking and development.

Here’s what you can see in this book cover:

Connect the green dots and you get a square. (Also the yellow dots.)

The pink dots form a line and then the one dot off to the side can make a perpendicular line to the other line. (Purple dots, too.)

These blue dots make a funny little shape.

But wait! There’s more!

What Sharon pointed out to me was that you can draw an L from any dot to another dot of the same color!

Optional: This “L” thing links directly to the slope, by the way. Between any two points of the same color, the slope is either 1/2 or -2. Cool, huh?

Where do you see patterns in your world? Share it (and a link to the picture) in the comments!