We are a homeschooling family and math is something that I struggled with as a child, I am *so* pleased that my kids are “getting” it! My just-turned 5 year old loves watching patterns emerge, I think most 3-5 year olds enjoy patterns. This Discovering Math Patterns activity will help your math-learner, the circles will help you and your child “see” skip-counting. They will learn to guess which number will come next.
And, they will love to see the shapes emerge as they count.
There is a feeling of excitement and sense of accomplishment when they figure out what “comes next”.
We practiced our skip counting on paper several times before moving to chalk.
There are a bunch of skip counting songs online that can help your child as you do this activity. Our favorites come from the band, Rocking the Standards. Their Rocking the Nines song, rocks!
To start you find the first number that you are counting from. You and your child draw a straight line from that number to the last number in the integer in the series. For 7’s you would start at the 7 and then for 14, you would go to the 4, then to the 1 for 21, etc. Keep going around and around the circle as your numbers grow.
A shape will appear and as you go, your child should be able to guess what the next number is going to be, even if they never skip counted before!
Download and print this skip counting worksheet:
We recreated the circles of numbers on our patio… next time the kids want to hop through their skip-counting by doing a giant version on the driveway!
For more math activities check out our math round-up.
