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Positions and Patterns Lesson Plans for Preschoolers

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January 12, 2023 by Lauren Vaughan

These preschool patterning lesson plans are full of daily lessons, center ideas, and hands-on activities that are developmentally appropriate for your preschoolers. This is one unit in the complete curriculum - Daily Lessons in Preschool Mathematics.
This set of preschool patterning lesson plans is designed to be a comprehensive set of lessons for teaching children how to create, copy, and extend patterns in preschool. Additionally, children will learn to use position words to describe an object's location. This is unit 5 of the Daily Lessons in Preschool Mathematics.

Patterns are an important part of learning mathematics for young children. By providing a variety of activities for teaching patterns to preschoolers, you can help them develop the skills they need for future success in math. That’s why we’ve created these positions and patterns lesson plans for preschoolers… so we could further explore developing patterns with hands-on and exciting activities.

Our lesson plans also include a detailed scope and sequence for the whole positions and patterns unit, ensuring that teaching patterns and identifying positional words are the major focus for the whole unit.

Positions and Patterns Activities for Preschoolers

These preschool patterning lesson plans are full of daily lessons, center ideas, and hands-on activities that are developmentally appropriate for your preschoolers. This is one unit in the complete curriculum - Daily Lessons in Preschool Mathematics.
This post will give you a detailed look at the positions and patterns unit in the daily mathematics lessons for preschoolers.

Creating a preschool math curriculum was a heavy task! I knew when I began planning lessons, activities, and centers that I needed to make sure that the math skills of every single child were accounted for and that there were plenty of opportunities for differentiation.

I also knew it needed to spiral and review key concepts multiple times throughout the year, gradually increasing in difficulty. This approach is ideal because it covers math topics throughout the entire year. This allows children more time for mastery and an opportunity to increase the rigor of each lesson.

The Daily Lessons in Preschool Math curriculum was born out of that need and today we are focusing on the fifth unit in the series, Daily Lessons in Positions and Patterning.

Did you know that preschoolers are capable of learning algebra? In fact, some may even argue that preschoolers learn algebraic skills before number sense skills. In preschool, algebraic skills are related to spatial relationships and patterns. This includes (to name a few):

  • recognizing and producing patterns
  • understanding positions and locations
  • discriminating between similarities and differences
  • sorting into groups

Plus, patterns are the root of mathematics. When young children see that math is composed of patterns and repetition, they begin to understand how our number system works as well.

These preschool patterning lesson plans are perfect for helping you plan engaging and developmentally appropriate lessons and activities for your students without loads of prep and time.

  • These daily lessons in preschool positions and patterns are designed to guide you through daily lessons, centers, vocabulary development and a deep dive into the math topic while still being developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.
    Daily Lessons in Positions & Patterns Preschool Math Unit
    $16.00
    Add to cart

Related Reading

The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Positions and Patterns

FAQ About Teaching Patterning to Preschoolers

How do you explain patterns to preschoolers?

Patterns can be anything that repeats in a logical way. For example, vertical stripes on someone’s sweater create a pattern. Patterns can be made up of anything, including numbers, images or shapes, as long as they follow a the ultimate patterning rule: that it is repetitive!

Learn all about patterning in this post: The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Positions and Patterns.

What order should I teach patterns?

Patterns range in complexity, so in preschool and kindergarten, you’ll find the most success if you start with simple patterns and work your way up to longer, more complex patterns. Here is a good order to go by:

~ AB
~ ABC
~ AABB
~ AAB
~ ABB

These patterns are all practiced in my Daily Lessons in Positions and Patterns Math Unit.

What are the stages of development in patterning skills?

There are many different levels to teaching and learning pattern skills, here’s the developmental sequence for teaching patterning skills to your Preschool or Pre-K students.

~ Stage 1: Recognize a pattern
~ Stage 2: Describe a pattern
~ Stage 3: Copy a pattern
~ Stage 4: Extend a pattern
~ Stage 5: Create a pattern

I would so add that a sixth stage could be created: Filling in a missing pattern pieces.

These daily lessons in preschool positions and patterns are designed to guide you through daily lessons, centers, vocabulary development and a deep dive into the math topic while still being developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.
The fifth unit in the math series, this unit focuses on learning positions and patterning skills.

Positions and Patterns Hands-On Supplies

This curriculum is designed to be low-prep and utilize the same supplies during each math unit. Buy it once, and use them over and over again for different learning purposes! Take a look at some of the resources we use for each unit and click each picture for more details. These items are staples for any early childhood math curriculum.

  • These daily lessons in preschool positions and patterns are designed to guide you through daily lessons, centers, vocabulary development and a deep dive into the math topic while still being developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.
    Daily Lessons in Positions & Patterns Preschool Math Unit
    $16.00
    Add to cart

All About Positions and Patterns Preschool Lesson Plans

These positions and patterns lesson plans for preschoolers are designed for up to a five-day-week program, but activities within a week can be removed and skipped for two or three-day-week programs. There are lots of pre-k pattern activities that help kids copy, reproduce, extend, and create their own patterns in various ways including with manipulatives, gross motor movement, and even with sound!

Discovery Activities/Math Photo Cards

The discovery activities are so much fun! Each week contains a real photograph or illustration for the children to interact with. The photo relates to the concept and encourages oral language and math vocabulary development. Plus, the vibrant photos expose children to different places, animals, and cultures. It’s easy to see that math really is everywhere in our daily lives!


The math photo card example below shows a colorful room with rainbow balls in different locations and positions. This engaging photo invites young learners to use positional words to determine an object’s location and make connections to the world around us. Each photo card includes mathematical points, teaching tips, and engaging questions to encourage your children to think about each photo through a mathematical lens.

These math picture cards are designed to encourage young children to look at math through a real world lens and find ways to use math in their daily lives. This positional photo card is included in our preschool patterning lesson plans.
These math photo cards help children see how math takes place in the world around us.

Daily Dip

The daily dip is a review activity to reinforce previously taught skills. You will notice valuable teaching tips throughout the review lessons. These tips offer insight to help execute specific strategies in
the lessons. This section is optional depending on time and student needs but is certainly a valuable component of each day.

The photo below shows examples of the first week of our positions and patterns unit. Notice the activities include use of position words to describe the location of a stuffed animal, counting and modeling zero, and applying counting knowledge to five and ten frames, which was previously taught in previous units to ensure exposure and practice to essential math skills all year long.

These preschool patterning lesson plans include detailed daily lessons and engaging activities to learn positional words and learn to copy, create, and extend patterns.
A sample of multiple days of the daily dip/teach and engage components of the math positions and patterns preschool math curriculum.

Teach and Engage

You’ll love the teach and engage section because it’s a brand new daily lesson for your students packed with new learning. This component of the curriculum includes lots of modeling and student interaction. Each lesson includes a bonus section that offers tips on how to make the lesson more challenging and provides extensions for children who are ready for more difficulty.

  • These daily lessons in preschool positions and patterns are designed to guide you through daily lessons, centers, vocabulary development and a deep dive into the math topic while still being developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.
    Daily Lessons in Positions & Patterns Preschool Math Unit
    $16.00
    Add to cart

Positions and Patterns Centers for Preschoolers

In these positions and pattern activities for preschoolers, we have included lots of hands-on activities and games that invite kids to develop and interact with patterns in numerous ways. Many of the games and centers use engaging manipulatives such as snap cubes, colored counters, counting bears, or even playdough. Independent centers should always be supervised in preschool and kindergarten.

Positional Words Clip Cards

This simple position game is simple to prep and easy to play. Print out the position cards and grab some clothespins. Then ask the child to identify the bird’s position (over, under, between, next to, etc.) and invite them to clip the corresponding square.

This position math center is designed for preschoolers to verbally match up the position of the bird to the bottom image using clothespins. This math center is included in our preschool patterning lesson plans in our math daily lessons.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-1 – This printable preschool center helps young children identify the positions of the birds on each card.

Positional Words Task Cards

A fun counting positional center that reinforces how we use positions in daily life. Using a small block and a small box for a hands-on positioning activity, students will replicate the image on the card and position the block appropriately.

This positions and patterns math center reinforces item positions in a hands-on way. This position math center is available in our positions and patterns daily math lessons.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-2 – This center can be used with simple materials from around the classroom and invites children to replicate the task in an exciting way.

Positional Words Cover All

This position center is great for use with foam cube dice where you can insert the images and roll the dice. This makes positioning the counters on top, behind, under, etc… lots of fun! Even if you don’t have a pocket dice, this center is lots of fun and can be used with endless other manipulatives to practice positional words.

This positions math center uses pictures of objects into different positions to help preschoolers learn how positional words help us describe item location. This math center is included in our positions and patterns daily lessons in math unit. These preschool patterning lesson plans include positions and patterns in the unit.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-3 – This center focuses on using positional words to describe where to put each counter.

Pattern Matching, Extending Patterns, Filling in Patterns

Learning about patterns is lots of fun! This patterning center uses rainbow counters to introduce simple patterns, build patterns, and develop an understanding of how patterns work. Plus, these pattern cards are simple to print and add to the center with manipulatives. This center can also be used with counting bears or snap cubes too!

This patterning math center uses rainbow counters to match, extend, and fill in patterns. This math center is included in our positions and patterns daily lessons in math unit. These preschool patterning lesson plans include both positions and patterns in the unit.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-4 – This patterning activity is a great way to practice patterning in different ways.

Pattern 1:1 Correspondence

Using snap cubes and counting bears, this center reinforces one-to-one correspondence while also developing patterning skills. Children can also continue to extend the pattern after the card has ended to prove mastery.

This patterning math center uses rainbow counting bears to match the color to each bear in the pattern and develop one to one correspondence skills as they count each object in the row. This math center is included in our positions and patterns daily lessons in math unit. These preschool patterning lesson plans include both positions and patterns in the unit.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-5 – This center helps children practice counting and creating and extending simple patterns.

Building Playdough Patterns

Preschoolers adore using playdough which makes this center a big hit in the classroom. Using various colors of playdough, children copy the colored circles to create the pattern. To extend this activity, we have included black circles so that the child can create their own pattern with the colors shown. This center builds fine motor and teaches kids various pattern types.

This patterning math center uses play dough to copy and/or create their own patterns. This math center is included in our positions and patterns daily lessons in math unit. These preschool patterning lesson plans include both positions and patterns in the unit.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-6 – This center focuses on copying the pattern shown on each card or creating and extending the pattern with playdough.

Yoga Kids Patterns

An engaging math game always makes for excited preschoolers! This pattern center uses gross motor skills to teach that patterns are everywhere. This center is best done together as a class first then moved into a center. Encourage children to follow the pattern of movements and copy the yoga with their bodies. To extend, you can invite children to create their own yoga or gross motor patterns.

This patterning math center uses kids in various yoga positions counters to practice copying and continuing gross motor patterns. This math center is included in our positions and patterns daily lessons in math unit. These preschool patterning lesson plans include both positions and patterns in the unit.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-7 – This center invites children to use their bodies to show different yoga movements to create a gross motor pattern.

Musical Patterns

We have included various pattern types in our math centers including musical sound patterns. These sound pattern cards encourage children to copy the music movements to create a musical pattern. Preschoolers absolutely love this activity and love to get creative and make their own. What happens when they add a third child to their sound pattern?

This patterning math center uses musical movements and rhythm to create a musical sound pattern. This math center is included in our positions and patterns daily lessons in math unit. These preschool patterning lesson plans include both positions and patterns in the unit.
Positions and Patterns Center 5-8 – This sound pattern printable set is sure to be a big hit with your preschoolers. Get ready for lots of rhythm and fun!

Math to Literacy Connections

We have also included eight optional literacy activities that infuse math picture books. Children learn best through colorful illustrations and storytelling. These eight picture books infuse pattern teaching, as well as, build upon other math skills (shapes, colors, patterns) as well. Click the book covers to read more about each book.

Grab these fantastic books about positions and patterns here!

Get Your Positions and Patterns Lesson Plans for Preschoolers Here

The daily lessons in positions and patterns are complete and ready to use! These patterning preschool lesson plans include daily lessons, centers, activities, and even literacy connections. This patterning math unit is all you’ll need to teach pattern development, position words, and develop foundational math skills to your preschoolers.

  • These daily lessons in preschool positions and patterns are designed to guide you through daily lessons, centers, vocabulary development and a deep dive into the math topic while still being developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.
    Daily Lessons in Positions & Patterns Preschool Math Unit
    $16.00
    Add to cart

Looking for a Preschool Math Curriculum for the Whole Year?

We’ve got you covered! From sorting to graphing, counting to shapes, this preschool math curriculum is loaded with engaging activities, literacy connections, and daily photo cards to spark joy in math.

  • *** Daily Lessons in Preschool Mathematics Curriculum
    *** Daily Lessons in Preschool Mathematics Curriculum
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Related Reading

The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Positions and Patterns
The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Number Sense in Preschool
Counting in Preschool – Part 2 of Number Sense Guide
Lauren Vaughan

I am an educator, book enthusiast, and a stay at home momma to two precious and long-awaited littles. My degree is in Early Childhood Education and Curriculum and Instruction and I have spent the last 15 years working with young children. I feel very fortunate to have this time to watch my babies grow and I can’t wait to share my passion for learning and reading with you!

Filed Under: Mathematics, Patterning

About Lauren Vaughan

I am an educator, book enthusiast, and a stay at home momma to two precious and long-awaited littles. My degree is in Early Childhood Education and Curriculum and Instruction and I have spent the last 15 years working with young children. I feel very fortunate to have this time to watch my babies grow and I can’t wait to share my passion for learning and reading with you!

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