Continue a pattern

💡 How it plays and why it helps

Most children master patterns that alternate before they meet one that takes three steps to repeat. Continue a pattern is the Kindergarten game for that next step. A row repeats three shapes, such as a pink heart, an orange diamond and a red circle, and stops at an empty box. Your child taps the shape that comes next, from four. The instruction is read aloud, five rows make a round, and the explanation names the three repeating shapes, then the answer.

With three shapes, alternating no longer works. Your child has to hold the whole unit in mind and find where the row stopped inside it. That is a bigger load on memory. It is the skill. The hint helps: say the shapes from the start, then keep going.

A child still thinking in twos will often tap the shape from two places back, as if the pattern were only heart, diamond. That choice usually sits on the card. Say the row aloud in threes and ask, "Heart, diamond, circle, and now?" Then name the work: "You found all three."