There are many patterns that students are already familiar with.
Good teaching of patterns makes use of these familiar patterns and draws the students' attention to many more.
Students can get excited about finding new patterns and creating their own.
There are many possibilities for using information and communication technology (ICT) to assist them in their explorations.
It is also important that students are helped to reflect on, and learn from, the patterns they find and make.
In this way, students can develop abstract ideas of number and shape that make complete sense to them.
They can also begin to develop their mathematical reasoning skills.
