Poly Plug Activities blackdouglas.com.au

Kite Tails

Submitted by: Black Douglas

This simple activity came from children who simply started playing with their Poly Plug. It was they who invented the idea of making kites and their teachers who seized the opportunity to introduce pattern work.

The red board with all its plugs in is the kite. The plugs from the yellow/blue board make the tail - of course the tails are patterned:

Some children like to put "bows" on their kite tails and use red ones from the kite to make them:

Other children make use of the thick/thin attributes of the plugs and make patterns which include colour and thickness.

Patterns & Patterns

These examples are patterns because they are composed of a unit which repeats. We too often fall into the trap of using this as a 'definition' of pattern. A trap because such a definition doesn't include cases like:

in which no unit repeats.

Actually make kite tails with these rules - the number aspect is too obvious when written in this form. They are patterns but they do not contain a unit which repeats. A pattern is in fact a pattern because it allows prediction of what comes next (and next after next and next after next after next ...)

Allowing children to make the 'repeating unit' kite tails, which seem to come naturally, and then offering some of these others with the question "Is my kite tail a pattern?" encourages a broader understanding of the concept of pattern.

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