ABSTRACT
Once students are familiar with repeating patterns where there is a change in one attribute, teachers can introduce changes to the other attributes. Rather than a sequence of patterns that is repeated over and over again, a growing pattern involves an increase or growth in the subsequent sections of the sequence. The teacher's role is to explicitly draw students' attention to making generalisations about number patterns. Multiplying and dividing numbers by 2 and exploring patterns will lead to healthy discussion on why zero is even and, further, whether odd and even numbers can be negative numbers (and, yes, they can). One that is very relevant to number patterns and algebra involves the use of spreadsheet software. In relation to patterns and functions, the focus of this chapter has been the importance of opportunities for students to explore patterns, find general rules and make generalisations.
