May Day is a fantastic hook for bringing vibrant spring colours into your maths continuous provision. By sorting and creating repeating patterns with flowers, children develop vital spatial reasoning and sequencing skills while celebrating the blooming season.

Materials Needed

A tuff tray or large flat play space
Artificial flowers (or simple flower shapes cut from scrap paper)
Sorting bowls matching the flower colours
Jumbo plastic tweezers (or kitchen tongs)

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Set the Scene

Fill the tuff tray with a scatter of colourful flowers to represent a messy spring meadow. Place the sorting bowls securely around the edges of the tray.

2. Sort by Colour

Ask the children to use the tweezers to pick up the flowers and drop them into the matching coloured bowls. Can you find all the red ones?

3. Introduce Patterns

Show the children how to lay the flowers in a line to create an alternating pattern (e.g., one red, one yellow, one red, one yellow).

4. Build the Flower Bed

Encourage children to make their own repeating pattern rows. What colour comes next in your line? Can you read the pattern out loud to me?

5. Count the Blooms

Once a pattern is built, count the flowers together. How many red flowers did you use? How many altogether?

Classroom Adaptations

Large class?

Set this up as a continuous provision tray that children can visit independently throughout the week.

Limited resources?

Use coloured bottle tops or painted pebbles instead of artificial flowers to keep it budget-friendly.

EAL learners?

Model the pattern visually and encourage them to point and say the colours in English or their home language.

High ability?

Introduce ABC patterns or challenge them to sort the flowers by size rather than just colour.

Flower Bed Patterns: Repeating Patterns Maths Activity for May Day