Designing Repeating Pattern Borders with Shapes and Colors
About this lesson
In this 45-minute Grade 1 lesson, children design paper picture-frame borders using repeating patterns of shapes and colors, such as AB, AAB, and ABC. They learn to identify the core unit that repeats, extend a pattern, and spot mistakes. You need paper strips, crayons or markers, scissors, glue sticks, and colored paper for cutting simple shapes.
- Grade
- 1
- Subject
- Math
- Time
- 45 min
Objective
Students will create and extend a repeating pattern of at least three full units using shapes and colors, and identify the core unit that repeats.
Materials
- Paper strips about 5 cm wide and 30 cm long (4 per student)
- Colored paper for cutting simple shapes (circles, squares, triangles)
- Crayons or markers
- Child-safe scissors and glue sticks
- Plain paper for a center drawing (one sheet per student)
- Whiteboard and markers
Hook
Draw a border on the whiteboard: red circle, blue square, red circle, blue square, red circle, then a green triangle. Ask students to read the pattern aloud with you and stop you when something looks wrong. Fix the mistake together and explain that artists use patterns to decorate frames, fabrics, and walls, and today students will be the pattern artists.
Main Activity
Model on the whiteboard how to find the core unit of a pattern by circling the part that repeats, showing an AB pattern (circle, square), an AAB pattern (star, star, heart), and an ABC pattern (red, yellow, blue). Each student first draws a simple picture in the middle of a plain sheet, such as a favorite animal, a place they love, or themselves. Next, students choose one pattern type and decorate four paper strips by drawing or gluing cut paper shapes, making sure each strip shows at least three full repeats of their core unit. Before gluing the strips around their picture as a frame, students swap strips with a partner who reads the pattern aloud, circles one core unit lightly in pencil, and points out any spot where the pattern breaks. Students fix mistakes, glue on their frames, and write their pattern rule (for example, AAB) in a corner of the frame. Finish with a short gallery walk where students guess each other's pattern rules.
Discussion Questions
- How did you decide which shapes and colors to use in your pattern?
- How can you find the part of a pattern that repeats over and over?
- If your border kept going around the corner, what would come next and how do you know?
- Where have you seen repeating patterns at home, at school, or outside?
- How are an AB pattern and an AAB pattern different?
Exit Ticket
On a small slip of paper, students draw the next three shapes in this pattern: triangle, circle, circle, triangle, circle, circle, ___, ___, ___. Then they circle the core unit.
Differentiation
Support: Give struggling learners a strip with the first two units already drawn so they only need to copy and continue the pattern. Limit them to an AB pattern using one shape in two colors, and have them say the pattern aloud as they draw each piece (red, blue, red, blue) to build rhythm and self-checking.
Extension: Challenge advanced learners to create a pattern that changes two features at once, such as shape and color (big red circle, small blue square, small blue square), or a growing pattern (one star, two stars, three stars). Ask them to write a rule that a classmate could follow to build the same border without seeing it.
