4th of July Pattern Strips

Kindergarten Preschool MathHolidaysFine Motor ActivitiesPrintables

If you’ve ever tried teaching patterns to preschoolers, you know that its a skill that you’ll practice over and over again.

And as with any skill that you practice repeatedly, it’s best to do so with a variety of different themes and activities as this will keep your students from getting bored.

Fortunately, patterns are one of the easiest skills to do this with as you can make patterns out of pretty much anything and these 4th of July pattern strips are proof of that!

Between the fireworks and the sweet red, white, and blue treats, there are so many fun, patriotic themed objects that you can use to practice patterns with your preschoolers!

Explaining Patterns to Preschoolers

When we first introduce our preschoolers to the concept of patterns, I like to explain that patterns happen when objects repeat.

Then, we immediately jump into basic examples of AB patterns as this gives them the ability to see and manipulate the pattern for themselves.

We break out the manipulatives and start building our own patterns while also talking about the different patterns that we might see in real life.

One that we continuously come back to is the American flag. The red and white stripes are such a great example of an AB pattern and see it with their own eyes really makes grasping the concept that much easier.

Patriotic Pattern Practice

With that flag as our inspiration, we decided to create a set of pattern strips that would give us the opportunity to practice those AB patterns while celebrating the 4th of July holiday and these 4th of July pattern strips are absolutely perfect for a little summer math practice and prepping them for your preschoolers couldn’t be any easier!

This download includes 12 patriotic pattern strips, all working on AB patterns and once you’ve printed them all off, you’ll need to simply run them through your laminator for durability.

Now, you could use the these pattern strips as they are and simply have your students place the pieces in the space to complete the patterns, but we really like the extra fine motor workout that comes with using Velcro dots (plus it helps keep those small pieces from getting lost!).

Just attach one side of the Velcro dots to the empty spaces on your pattern strips and the opposite side of the Velcro onto the backs of the pattern pieces.

Your students will get to practice continuing patterns with fireworks, flags, patriotic ice creams, and more, making this a fantastic math activity for your Independence Day learning!