The nth Term Matching Activity

The nth term of a sequence (using position to term rules) is something that a lot of learners struggle with. When I used to teach it I routinely made the mistake of trying to teach my students a "trick" for how to identify the position to term rule before they understood what nth term, position, sequence, etc actually meant - the classic pitfall of teaching the algorithm before the concept.

This activity is designed to encourage pairs of learners to articulate their thinking around this topic. It works best when learners are allowed to struggle with the matching exercise and hopefully work out their own "tricks", and hence understanding of position to term rules.

The downloads are below. The are two versions: the 10 pair version is all linear sequences and the 12 pair version includes a quadratic. NB. When cutting out the cards, make sure that pupils cannot simply match them by looking at card size or scissor marks.

If you like this activity you might also appreciate the Amelie Fashion Mystery. If you want to be updated when I publish more maths resources please subscribe below.