AB Pattern with Spring

What comes next in the pattern? On this sheet a row of spring things repeats in an AB rhythm — one picture, then a second, then back to the first — and the child fills the empty wagons to keep the pattern going. Seeing that two pictures alternate and predicting the next is the heart of early patterning, the thinking skill of finding and extending a rule. The familiar pictures keep the focus on the repeat.

The skill an AB pattern builds is prediction from a rule — the child sees the start of the sequence and works out what must come next. For Kindergarten that is core readiness thinking, and a clean two-picture alternation of spring things rehearses it without numbers, keeping the focus on the repeating rhythm.

Children who get the hang of the AB back-and-forth start predicting the next picture at a glance, and finishing a clean alternating train feels satisfying, a small and clear early win. When this feels easy, try the pattern in ab pattern with summer, or ab pattern with toys. You can also browse every pattern worksheet or the whole kindergarten collection — each sheet prints cleanly or plays online for free, and the more two-part patterns a child completes, the readier they are for patterns where a picture starts to double — the natural next step up the ladder.