This document contains a lesson plan for teaching patterns to 4th grade students. It includes pre-lesson questions about connecting to prior knowledge, managing student behavior, and accommodating English language learners. The lesson plan outlines launching the lesson by defining patterns, a warm-up activity identifying a numeric pattern, and having students make and continue each other's patterns using dry erase boards. Examples are worked through together and independently before an assessment worksheet. Reflection questions address satisfaction with planning and implementation, assessing learning objectives, accommodating special needs students, lessons learned, and opportunities for improvement.

1. Pre-Lesson Questions
1. This lesson connects to what they have been doing because they have been doing lots
of work using and learning different shapes. They also have been learning different
strategies for solving problems. This lesson doesn’t hit too many difficult math concepts,
but if a student is struggling on skip counting they might have trouble recognizing
patterns.
2. I am taking the risk that the students will lose focus when I have them use their dry
erase boards because that can be very distracting. This will be a prime opportunity for
them to begin talking. They also might have a hard time finishing other students’
patterns, another situation they might begin talking.
3. Jessica- ELL. All other special education students are removed from the classroom at
this point. And then other students struggling are at a table in the back working on
something else.
Introductory Information
Grade Level: 4th Date: 2/7/12
Topic/Title: Patterns
Objectives: Find patterns to solve problems
Assessment: Problems 1-6 on pg. 419, Practice Worksheet 16.6
Gearing Down: Encourage students to use shapes when making patterns
Gearing Up: Encourage students to use multiplication when making patterns
Materials: Textbook page 418-419, Worksheet 16.6, dry erase boards, dry erase markers
Lesson Outline
Launch:
What is a pattern? What makes something a pattern? Where are patterns found?
There can be patterns using colors, shapes, sizes or with more than one of those
characteristics.
Warm-Up Activity
o Write on board: 18, 23, 28, 33, 38, …
o What is the pattern in the list of numbers? Five is being added to each
term.
o Let’s try and figure out how to find the 8th
term. What will the 6th
term
be? (43) How did you find that answer? What will the 7th
term be? (48)
What will the 8th
term be? (53) Great! So we were able to solve this
problem by finding the pattern and applying it to answer the question.
You guys have learned how to solve problems using lots of different methods:
guess and check, charts, and graphs. Today we are going to solve problems using
patterns.
Instruct
Okay now before you start taking out what you are going to need, I want you to
listen to my directions. You are going to make up your own pattern. You can use
shapes or numbers. What is key to making a pattern with shapes? You must

2. remember to have your pattern repeat. Someone is going to try and finish your
pattern so you must make sure someone will be able to recognize the pattern you
have made. If you would like to make it a little hard you can use numbers and use
multiplication instead of addition. Or you can even use subtraction.
I am going to give you just a few minutes to make your pattern. When you are
done give me a thumbs up on your desk and then I will give you the next
directions. Okay now take out your dry erase boards and make your pattern.
When majority of students have their thumbs up. Please finish up your patterns.
Now when I tell you to, you are going to stand up and rotate one desk to your
right. Then add on to your neighbors’ pattern. You may now stand up and rotate
a desk over. You have four minutes.
Great! Now everyone can move back to their desks. I need one volunteer to come
up and write their pattern on the board. Now whoever finished this pattern can
come up and write what they added on. What pattern did you discover? How did
you know what to write next?
Can the book students please pass out the books? Everyone turn to page 418.
Now we are going to learn how to take these patterns and use them to solve
problems. John is using tiles to design a mural for a playground. If he continues
the pattern, which group of tiles should he use to the unfinished section? Can
someone read from the box of what we know? So we are going to figure out the
pattern and continue it. Now can someone read the first bullet point from the
Solve box? Then look at the diagonal rows. What pattern do you see? (yellow,
red, blue, green, yellow, red) Who can tell me which choice is correct? Great!
How did you know?
Now pull out your notebooks and do numbers 1 and 2 on page 419. These should
only take a minute or two. Put a thumb up on your desk when you are finished. I
need a volunteer to answer number 1. And a volunteer to answer number 2.
Now we are going to work through some problems together. Number 4: A border
has a repeating design that shows a triangle, a circle, and a pentagon in a row. The
triangle is just before the pentagon. The circle is first. Draw the first eight figures
in the design. It is very important to pay attention to details for this question.
What shape is first? (circle) How do we know what shape comes next? And what
comes last? So the pattern will be circle, triangle, pentagon, circle, triangle,
pentagon, circle, and pentagon.
5. The pattern on the right can also be shown as 1, 3, 6, 10. What would be the
next two numbers and figures? What is the pattern you see when you look at just
the number? So what will the next two numbers be? Now, looking at the figures
what do you think will the next figure look like?
6. Vincent made a design in which 3 out of every 7 quadrilaterals were green.
Vincent colored 56 quadrilaterals. How many quadrilaterals did Vincent color
green? Let’s draw this out to help us. Xxxxxxx How many times does 7 go into
56? (8) So this pattern we drew is going to repeat 8 times and if we have 3 green
quadrilaterals for the first 7, does anyone know how many green quadrilaterals
there will be when there are 57 total? (If this seems too confusing I am going to
make a chart-shown below- to help explain)

3. 7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56
3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
Summarize
Do you guys understand how finding these patterns can help solve problems? Now
keep this strategy in mind when solving other problems.
Now I want you guys to do worksheet 16.6 and turn it in when you are finished.
We will be walking around if you need any help.
Reflection Questions
1. I am satisfied with my lesson plan. I thought my worked examples went really well. It
was a tricky lesson because all of the examples were completely different. The only
theme that was the same throughout was patterns. One representation that I used was the
chart to explain the last problem. This went very well and I think it really helped the
students. I could have done a better job preparing deep questions. I didn’t write in too
many deep questions and they were too hard to come up with on the spot. I had a
difficult time trying to predict how the students would respond to my teaching.
2. I am satisfied with my implementation of this lesson. One thing that went very
different than I thought was I thought it would take much longer to get through my
lesson. I finished a lot early than planned and had to fill in some time. My lesson plan
helped my teaching because it really made me sit down and think through each problem
individually and what would be the best way to explain each one would be. The lesson
plan hindered my teaching just a little because I liked how I had written all of my
questions and I couldn’t remember all of them and I didn’t want to be reading right off
my plan.
3. When the students did the work in the book by themselves, I thought they had a good
grasp on my objective. But once the students did the practice worksheet, I was a little
more concerned. The practice sheet was a lot harder than anything I taught or in the
book. Many of the students needed help finishing it. I assessed the children’s learning
by seeing how well they knew the problems in the book and how they did on the practice
sheet. Seeing so many children needing help on the practice sheet was evidence I didn’t
quite accomplish my learning objective. However, by the speed they finished the book
exercises it seemed like they accomplished the learning objective.
4. The children with special needs have a para with them for part of the lesson and then
are taken out of the room for the rest. The other children that struggle with math work
with a teacher in the back of the room. Both groups of students missed the majority of
my lesson.
5. The first thing I learned is lesson plans go a lot faster than you think they would.
Another thing I learned is the dry erase activity did not work out too well because some
students made very difficult patterns to finish. I could avoid this next time by putting
more perimeters on the guidelines for the patterns they make.

4. 6. One thing I noticed is when I instructed the book people to pass out the books, I
stopped talking while they passed them out. This gave the class a prime opportunity to
start talking. If I had teaching during that time I would have had more control over the
class. I will definitely keep this in mind when I teacher in the future.