Patterns are everywhere! Did you ever count the number of stairs going up or down, count the number of windows in your home, or notice the pattern in your wallpaper? It is our way to try and establish order and to make sense of our everyday experiences through patterns.

Try This:

Look at the pattern below. Predict what you think the next image in the pattern will look like.

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Check your answer here:

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Let's take a look at an example of a pattern. Look at the staircases of blocks below.

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Can you see the pattern? The pattern shows that as you add the number of blocks at the bottom, the staircase goes up by that number of blocks. For example, in #1, you have one stair. In #2, two blocks were added, and now there are two stairs. In #3, three blocks were added, and now there are three stairs.

Now, make a prediction of what the next three staircases would look like.

Click here to see the answers!

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Did you get it right? Could you now predict how many stairs there would be if we added on 20 blocks? If you guessed 20 stairs, you would be right!

You can also use numbers to find patterns and make predictions.

For example, take a look at the numbers below to see if you can find a pattern:

3, 6, 9, 12, 15

Can you see that each of the numbers is increasing by 3 each time? If your teacher asked you to find the next three numbers in the pattern, all you would have to do is add 3 to each number as follows:

15 + 3 = 18

18 + 3 = 21

21 + 3 = 24

Finding patterns in numbers can get tricky. You really have to look at what is happening in the pattern so that you can predict which numbers come next. Sometimes, more than one thing might be happening in the pattern. For example, take a look at the pattern below:

51, 48, 53, 50, 55

At first glance, this might not look like a pattern at all. However, if you really look at the numbers, you can see that the following is occurring:

If you subtract 48 from 51, you can see that the second number is going down by 3 (51 – 3 = 48). If you try to predict that the next number will also going down by 3, you would get 45 (48 – 3 = 45), however, as you can see, the next number is 53, so that is not the correct pattern.

To figure out the next part of the pattern, you have to look at the numbers. How did 48 get to 53? If you add 5 to 48, you get 53, so that is the second part of the pattern. Now, let's double check to see if the pattern continues.

So far, we know that the pattern goes down by 3, then it goes up by 5 (51, 48, 53), so let's try the next three numbers to see if we have the correct pattern:

53 – 3 = 50 (Yes! This is the next number in the pattern.)

50 + 5 = 55 (Yes! This is the next number in the pattern.)

So now you can predict what the next two numbers would be:

55 – 3 = 52 (which would be the next number in the pattern)

52 + 5 = 57 (which would be the next number in the pattern)

  Self-check!