L1 Patterns and Sequences

This Working Without Worksheets lesson for Year 2 introduces children to position, direction, and repeating patterns, extending their early understanding of sequences into more complex examples involving orientation and missing elements. Through practical, hands-on activities, children explore how patterns can change in direction, shape, or colour — deepening spatial reasoning and logical thinking. The lesson begins with a starter revisiting previous learning from shape and money units. Children complete simple repeating patterns using colours and 2-D shapes, reinforcing recognition of sequence order and repetition. The teacher then explains that today’s learning extends this understanding with more challenging patterns and orientation-based sequences. During the introduction, animated slides demonstrate how repeating shapes can rotate or change direction while maintaining the same colour and form. This helps children recognise that position and orientation can be part of a pattern. The class then explores Tia’s beaded necklace pattern, predicting which colour comes next and determining that the 20th bead must be yellow by identifying the pattern’s structure. The next challenge features Zach’s broken necklace, where children must reason which colours are missing from the pattern. This develops logical thinking, prediction, and pattern continuation skills. In the activity, learning becomes fully practical. Task 1: In pairs, children sit back-to-back with multilink cubes. One child describes the first few cubes of a pattern, while their partner continues the sequence to build a 12-cube “wand.” They then check if the sequence matches. Task 2: A recorded task using beaded necklace templates. Children choose one of two differentiated sheets — one with missing beads (more challenging) and one to complete — and finish the pattern using coloured pencils. Finally, in the plenary, children identify and correct an error in Rosie’s number sequence, explaining that she mis