The Broken Pattern

This morning, we made patterns with our cereal.  It was a desperate attempt to get Eva to eat anything healthy before noon. 
I gave Dyleva a bowl of different cereals to create a pattern of their choice.   

 "Mommy, I have an idea.  How about we do something wrong in the pattern and we can see which one broke the pattern.  If we get it right, we don't have to eat it.   But if we get it wrong, then we have to eat it because we have to get rid of it."

Eva turned it into a game, and she was highly engaged.  She tried to stump me!  We practiced continuing a pattern, fixing an incorrect pattern, and identifying the unit (repeated part) of the pattern.  This is an overarching theme I am considering with my students next year, so I wanted to experiment with the ninos.  They did awesome!

Dylan completed a six unit pattern when I tracked it with my finger!  Eva was set on the broken pattern, identifying the problem and fixing it....but I still don't know how much she ended up eating.....