What Comes Next?

How to play What Comes Next?

Press the big yellow Play button. A train arrives with a pattern on its wagons.
Listen to the pattern, or say it out loud: red, blue, red, blue, red...
Tap the answer that goes in the empty wagon at the end.
A right answer gets a star and the train leaves. After a wrong one, the game says the pattern again slowly.

For parents and teachers

Spotting what repeats is early algebra: a pattern is a rule, and finishing it means using the rule. Say the patterns aloud with your child and clap or tap along, then make patterns at home with blocks, spoons or socks. The game moves from two colours taking turns to longer patterns and then to shapes, where the colour gives no help and only the shape does.

How it works

A little train pulls in with a pattern on its wagons, red, blue, red, blue, red, and one wagon empty at the end. Three answers wait by the track, and the game says the pattern out loud, because saying a pattern is how a child hears it repeat. Two colours taking turns come first, then a colour twice and another once, then three colours in turn, and then shapes instead of colours. A right answer loads the last wagon and the train whistles away; after a wrong one the game says the pattern again slowly while each wagon lights up, and asks again.