3rd Grade Patterns and In-Out Boxes

Third graders at Varina Elementary have been learning how to identify, create, and extend patterns in Math (SOL3.16), so today students in Ms. Lanham’s class created patterns with Google Sheets. First, I gave the students a template to use that has fewer cells and a larger font size than Google’s default spreadsheet. Since this was the first time many of them had seen a spreadsheet, I explained that each row in a spreadsheet has a number, each column has a letter, and each cell is labeled with a combination of both (like A2 or C4). This is important to understand when it comes to writing formulas later. The top row usually has the column names, so I showed them how to highlight the row by clicking the number 1 on the left, and we made it all bold by clicking the Bold button in the toolbar. Then we typed the column names: In, Out, and Pattern. In-Out boxes are a great way to get students thinking about patterns because they focus on just two numbers (the number that goes “In” the box and the number that comes “Out”) and infer what happens inside the “Box.” The students typed a few random numbers in the first column. In the second column, they wrote simple formulas such as =A2+5 or =A3-3, and when they pressed “Enter,” they saw what came out of the “Box” they created. Some people may think spreadsheets are boring, but students get very excited when they see their formulas work. They especially enjoy this next trick to continue the pattern: click on a cell in the second column (one with a formula) and a blue box should appear; click and drag the bottom corner of the blue box across the rest of the row, and it automatically fills with the continued pattern! Finally, I showed the students how they could click the “Explore” button in the bottom right corner of the spreadsheet and choose their Formatting colors (or they could highlight rows and columns and make them whatever colors they wanted). We shared our spreadsheets on Schoology so their classmates could guess the patterns by typing a reply like, “Row 3 is +5.” You can see their spreadsheets here.