All children's names have been changed.

This is about recognizing the rules by which something occurs. It's about recognizing regularities, patterns as for example the rule which generates this sequence of numbers: 3 6 12 24 48 96. This sequence is generated by doubling the previous number.

Yet, not only in the field of mathematics, but in all areas of our natural, technical and social environment there are rules and patterns to be discovered. And it is quite possible, and for gifted children even appealing, to develop systems of their own, which will then work by certain rules – again, in all conceivable areas.

In everyday life at the kindergarten it is easy to notice, when children quickly recognize and memorise the daily or weekly routines and try to follow them closely.

At the same time a rapid recognition of patterns and rules may be expressed, when children of a certain age and development suddenly come up with explicit rules by which they stack building bricks, or when they immediately understand and perform the rules of a game.

Example by Hanna Vock, Bonn

Over a period of two weeks, on a daily basis, I observed a girl (2;0) playing Duplos (large Legos), which were new to her. After three days she began building strictly symmetrical structures. The overall shape of each building was absolutely symmetrical, what's more, the distribution of bricks by size and colour consistently followed the regime of symmetry.

After another couple of days of successfully building symmetry her interest declined. She now began building fences (irregular ones) for her little animal figures, strictly following a new rule: the correlation “one pen – one animal”.

Even at her very young age of only 2 years she was already proficient in recognizing patterns and rules, as with every other Duplo brick she had to decide, whether it obeyed the rule of symmetry.

Date of publication in German: November 11 th , 2008.

Translated by Arno Zucknick

Copyright © Hanna Vock 2008, see Imprint