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Daily LEGO maths prompts every day in August

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Mathematician and ninja mathematical-thinking-prompter Alison Kiddle has been posting an image each day for the whole of August, each prompting some kind of mathematical question or discussion.

If you have small mathematicians in your life and enjoy #tmwyk (talking maths with your kids), or are yourself a mathematician of any size continuing to marvel at the mathematical nature of the universe, you might enjoy checking in each day to notice and wonder, or try a puzzle, or find some hidden maths in a thing. The first prompt, which was posted on 1st August, is below.

An overhead view of three patterns made from square red and yellow lego bricks: the first is a single yellow square, the second has yellow-red on the top row and red-yellow on the bottom, and the third has three rows: yellow-red-yellow on top, red-yellow-red in the middle, yellow-red-yellow on the bottom.

Here are the first three stages of a pattern made out of Lego.
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
What questions might a mathematician ask?

Can you work out how many yellow bricks and how many red bricks you’d need to make the tenth pattern in the sequence?
Or the 100th pattern?
Or the nth pattern?

Some responses already shared on social media can be found in the replies to this tweet.

The prompts will be posted daily on Alison’s blog, and you can join in the conversation by finding the corresponding posts they’re putting out on their Mastodon and Twitter and adding your thoughts.

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