Today, we're going to learn how to make our robot create amazing patterns! We see patterns everywhere—on our clothes, in the floor tiles, and in our favorite songs. A pattern is a rule that repeats. Our robot loves to follow rules, and today it will follow a set of instructions to make a colorful pattern.
Materials Needed:
Worksheet: A handout with a series of empty boxes in a single, long row.
Colored Objects: Two or three different colors of small objects, like pom-poms, LEGO bricks, or even colored tokens. These will be your "code blocks."
Begin the lesson by showing the students some examples of patterns in the classroom. Point to the stripes on a shirt, the sequence of colours on a box of crayons, or the pattern of tiles on the floor. Ask them what they see that repeats. This helps them connect the idea of a pattern to the real world.
Explain that a pattern is made from a short set of commands, called a code block.
As a class, you will all follow the same code block.
Show the following simple sequence of three or four of the Code Cards for the students to see.
Guide the students to begin their pattern.
On their grid drawing sheet, they will follow the code you have provided, drawing a red circle, then a blue square, then a green circle in the first few boxes.
This is the most important step. Tell the students, "Now that we've used our code once, we have to make our robot repeat the code over and over to make the pattern!"
Have the students go back to the beginning of their code block and start drawing the sequence again in the next few empty boxes on the grid.
They will repeat this process, drawing the same sequence of shapes and colours until their entire grid is full.
Get ready to embark on an incredible learning journey! Get access to this lesson and hundreds more in our Digital Skills Curriculum.
