Image of the Week: Finding Playground Patterns

Finding Playground Patterns

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it’s spring! Perhaps you feel like we do and have an intense urge to get outside and enjoy it, to breathe in the fresh air and feel the sunshine on your faces. We say, do it and take your kids with you!

And while you’re out there, we suggest that you take advantage of your school’s playground or yard to look for patterns. Playground equipment, like swings and climbing structures, are packed full of patterns. Patterns in sequences, in shapes, and in symmetry. Take, for example, this week’s image, an aerial shot of playground and play yard. Before you go outside, ask your student, What patterns do you see?

Students might see the repeated 2×2 arrays of the four-square courts. Students might notice the pattern of repeated, bisected circles on the basketball courts, or use their basketball knowledge to name parts that repeat, like the hoops and the keys. Or students might cue to the playground equipment, rarely seen from above, and notice the symmetry in the red tower roofs anchoring either end of one structure, with slides and climbing bars jutting out in pairs from either side. Seeing this equipment from the air might prompt students to think about your playground equipment from a new vantage point.

So, take your students outside. Look at the playground, at the basketball or other sports courts, at the pathways, at the painted asphalt. Look at where there are benches or fences and where there is grass. What patterns do you see? What a beautiful way to spend a spring day.

And we invite you to follow us on Twitter! Tweet us the fascinating ideas you students have about our activities or how you’re trying these activities in your space. We can’t wait to hear from you!

To multiplicity, cheers!

Jen Munson and the multiplicity lab group