Wednesday 7 March 2012

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Montessori Activity: Teaching Pattern Recognition with Lego Bricks/模式识别




Age: From 3 years

Activity Duration: 10-15 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To get the child ready for Maths.
2. To teach logic and number pattern recognition.
3. To train the child’s fine motor skills.

Materials:
1. 1 container containing 2 different colours Lego bricks
2. 1 Lego board

Directions:
1. Make a simple pattern using the Lego bricks:



2. Encourage your child to repeat the pattern that you made on the next line to ensured graps the concept:


3. Praise your child and then try the next level's challenge by removing what he has completed + one of the bricks from the original pattern and ask him to fill in the missing brick follwing the pattern:



4. If your child can do it, proceed on to the next next level of challenge by removing two of the bricks from the original pattern and ask him to fill in the missing bricks following the pattern::


5. If your child can do it, proceed on to the next next next level of challenge by taking away three of the bricks from the original pattern and ask him to fill in the missing bricks following the pattern:


Additional Information:
Recognizing patterns is part of the kindergarten curriculum in Singapore. I saw something similar in one of the kindergarten assessment books in Singapore and another assessment book in Chinese from China imported into Singapore at the Popular Bookshop. It gave me an idea to bring to life what's on paper to something 3-dimensional which the children can play with and at the same time learn the concept in a very tangible way with touch, feel, sensory stimulation using the Danish Lego bricks. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, being in this cross-cultural marriage, I am constantly trying to find ways to embrace the good and discard the bad, and I find myself applying it to the education department right now. This activity is thus a marriage of the best of Singapore, China and Denmark, combining logic training emphasized in the East and play emphasized in the West.

I have simplified the pattern shown on this post, based on the trial last week with Joshua. You can make changes to the complexity of the pattern to suit the development of your child. This may still be too advance for Joshua, but I am just recording it down, before I forget it.

Happy playing and learning with Lego, while still keeping up with the kiasu and demanding Singapore's kindergarten's syllabus :-)

The Lego Basic Bricks are my favourite, because they are so simple, and can be modeled into different things using the power of imagination. You can buy Lego Duplo Basic Bricks and the building plate from Amazon:


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