Math moments
December 2025
Problem
Find the Math
While getting dressed, talk about sizes, shapes, and patterns on clothing. Talk about the math: “Look at the pattern on your shirt! it goes: narrow blue stripe then wide green stripe. Now, you show me what comes next. What other patterns do you see?”
Source
Game
Talk about cubes and spheres. What shapes do we see that look like this?
What’s the pattern? What comes next? Let’s make a new pattern.
Number Talks
The more you talk with your child about patterns, the more your child's pattern identifying skills will grow.
Here are some conversation starters to practice with your child:
"I have so many different colors of socks! Can you make a pattern with the white and blue ones?"
"These towels are all different sizes — let's make a pattern that goes small, medium, large, small,
medium, large."
"You and your brother have lots of shirts. Let's sort them in a pattern — one for you, one for your
brother, one for you, one for your brother… "
"Look how the dots on these plates are in rows."
"I made a line of cups — first a glass cup, then a plastic one, then a mug. Now I'm going to repeat it
— glass, plastic, mug, glass, plastic, mug."
"We have metal and plastic forks. Can you put them in a pattern that grows — metal, plastic, metal,
metal, plastic, plastic, metal, metal, metal, plastic, plastic… what comes next? Plastic!"