On the Way to Pattern-Making: Young Children’s Self-Initiated Non-Pattern Creations

Young children create arrangements with every kind of material that is available to them. Often, but not always, these creations are patterns. The current study focuses on the non-pattern creations by investigating the different types of non-pattern creations and linking them to pattern-making. Eighty-four children ranging in age from 1 to 6 years were observed during free play in their early childhood classroom. All arrangements that children created on their own accord from a variety of materials were documented and categorized. For non-pattern creations, three categories were developed, which reflect different ways of interacting with the material: distributing, penciling, and aligning. The category ‘aligning’ seems to provide basic experiences in spatially moving and aligning objects with regard to later pattern-making.