Young children’s self-initiated pattern-making during free play

Abstract

ABSTRACT Young children spontaneously create patterns during play. However, this self-initiated pattern-making has yet to be systematically researched. In particular, the extent of self-initiated pattern-making, the pattern types young children create, and the potential differences in pattern-making for different ages are still to be examined. Investigating pattern-making in natural play-situations, the study observed 84 children during free play in their early childhood classrooms. All arrangements that children created on their own accord were documented. Nearly all children engaged in creating arrangements as a self-initiated activity, but the total number of creations varied largely between children. A significant, medium correlation was found between pattern-making and children’s ages. Most patterns were reflections, but also translation-patterns, rotation-patterns, and growing patterns were created. Significant differences regarding age seem to hint at a development from creating repeating patterns with a simple structure to patterns with a more complex unit of repeat and creating growing patterns.