Worksheet Grade 2 Art & Music
Cobbleford Park Fountain Tile Border: A Grade 2 Pattern Sheet
Students design a three-tile repeating border for a park bottle-filling fountain, then add and subtract within 100 to find out whether the tile order is enough.
Objectives
- Students will design a three-tile repeating unit and copy it along a row.
- Students will add and subtract two-digit tile counts within 100.
- Students will decide whether a supply of tiles covers a border and explain how they know.
Vocabulary
Key words: pattern, repeat, border, tile, fountain
Teacher overview
The town of Cobbleford is a made-up place putting a drinking fountain with a bottle-filling spout in its park, and the wall panel behind it gets a tile border along the top and down both sides. Students design the repeating three-tile unit first and then find out, by adding and subtracting, whether the crew ordered enough tiles to finish the job.
Print the sheet with a plain rectangle for the wall panel, three empty boxes for the pattern unit, and a row of eighteen small squares across the top of the panel. The arithmetic in items 3 through 8 stays within 100 on purpose, and item 7 is the one worth watching, because a border that needs 42 tiles cannot be built from 41 and students have to name the gap of one rather than treat the two numbers as close enough.
Student Worksheet
Read aloud: A park is getting a new fountain. You can fill a water bottle at it. The wall behind it needs a tile border. You get to design the tiles.
| Part of the border | Tiles |
|---|---|
| Top row | 18 |
| Left side | 12 |
| Right side | 12 |
- Design your pattern. Color the three boxes. Use two or three colors.
- Copy your pattern along the top row. Color every tile.
- The top row has 18 tiles. The left side has 12 tiles. How many tiles is that in all?
- The right side has 12 tiles too. How many tiles does the whole border need?
- The park crew ordered 50 tiles. How many tiles will be left over?
- Nine tiles broke on the truck. How many good tiles are left from the 50?
- Are 41 good tiles enough for the whole border? Tell how you know.
- The crew orders 15 more tiles. How many good tiles do they have now?
- Why is a repeating pattern easier for the crew to lay than a mixed-up one? Write one sentence.
- Write one sentence. Tell why a park needs a spot to fill a water bottle.
From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.
Answer Key
- Answer: Three colored boxes forming one unit. Any two or three colors are correct as long as the three boxes together make a unit a student could repeat, rather than three unrelated drawings.
- Answer: The top row repeats the unit. The eighteen squares should show the same three-box order over and over, starting again each time the third box is filled.
- Answer: 30 tiles. Add the top row and the left side: 18 + 12 = 30.
- Answer: 42 tiles. Add the right side to the previous total: 30 + 12 = 42. Accept students who add 18 + 12 + 12 in one line.
- Answer: 8 tiles. Take the border total from the order: 50 - 42 = 8.
- Answer: 41 tiles. Take the broken tiles from the order: 50 - 9 = 41.
- Answer: No. The border needs 42 tiles and only 41 are good, so the crew is 1 tile short.
Accept any explanation that compares 41 with 42 and names the gap of one. - Answer: 56 tiles. Add the new order to the good tiles: 41 + 15 = 56.
- Answer: A repeat is easy to follow. Accept any sentence saying that the crew can see what comes next, that they do not have to stop and decide each time, or that a mistake is easier to spot in a pattern.
- Answer: A refill spot saves buying bottles. Accept any reasonable reason, such as people getting a drink for free, reusing one bottle instead of throwing bottles away, or having water on a hot day.
Differentiation
Support
Give these students a top row with the first pattern unit already colored, so the repeat is started for them, and provide base-ten blocks for items 3 through 8. Rewrite item 7 as a two-step prompt on their copy, first asking how many tiles the border needs and then asking whether 41 is enough. Accept drawings as the work shown.
Extension
Ask these students to design a four-tile unit instead of three, decide whether it still fits the 18-tile top row evenly, and write one sentence explaining what happens at the end of the row when it does not. They can also add a bottom row of 18 tiles to the panel and rework items 4 through 8 with the larger border.
ELL supports
Show a real tiled surface in the building, such as a bathroom wall or a floor edge, and trace the repeat with a finger before the sheet is handed out. Put a small picture beside top, left, and right in the table so the three parts of the border are identifiable without reading. Accept sentences for items 9 and 10 in the home language, then add the English words pattern and repeat together.
Extensions
Cut the finished pattern units into strips and tape them end to end around a classroom doorway to see the repeat at full length, which makes the difference between 41 and 42 tiles physical rather than arithmetic. Classes that want a real audience can send the three strongest border designs to the parks department with a short cover note from the class about where a bottle-filling fountain would help most.