workshop 3: teaching repeating patterns and function machine~

REPEATING PATTERNS

Teaching repeating patterns to children can be done by using music. 

1. The teacher can show these simple musical instruments and then do a demonstration in order to show repeating patterns for eg:

drum, chime bell; drum, chime bell; drum, chime, bell

2. After that the teacher can ask students "what is the sounds that I have made?what instruments have i used?what were the patterns of the sounds?"

3. Students then can try making their own repeating sounds patterns using objects in the classroom or body movements for eg:

clap hands, knock on the door, sounds of pencil case and etc.

This activity would make students understand the concept of repeating patterns better since children could relate to sounds and it will enable them to use their creativity in creating patterns. Teachers could extend this activity by making it more fun by recording the sounds made by students and present them to the whole class.

Function machine: qualitative change

Firstly, teachers can show video on Dr. Seuss Star Belly Sneetch machine to introduce the function machine and how it works(Jack cough on software, 2009):

starting from 4.45, students could clearly see how a function machine works.

 In order to enhance their understanding on the function machine, teachers can ask questions such as

T: how do the sneetches look like before they went through the Star Belly machine?

S: they do not have any star on their belly

T: how about after they went through the machine?

S: they have a star on their belly!!

Then teachers can relate to the state before the sneetches have stars as the 'input' and after they got stars as the 'output'. Besides, teachers can also explain to students that the Star Belly machine is a function machine that will change something that went through it. After that, teachers can show pictures of objects so that students can use their prior knowledge about Star Belly machine to understand qualitative change in function machine.

Teachers can ask question such as: "what was the colour of the square before it went through the function machine?", "what about the star?". Then, students will guess what would happen to the rocket. This activity is fun and students will definitely understand the function machine by using Cartoon as they could relate to it better.

references:
Jack cough on software (2009). Teaching functional programming to kids. Retrieved 29 October from
http://jackcoughonsoftware.blogspot.com/2009/05/teaching-functional-programming-to-kids.html