Take two or three hands-up answers for the next colour, then ask the second question and pause. The goal is for someone to spot the red, blue unit that repeats — revoice it as so the part that keeps coming back is red then blue.

Walk each example one at a time.

• Triangle, square — ring the first two shapes and say this is one full unit, then point to the next pair and the next.
• Triangle, triangle, square — head off the common slip of breaking the unit in the wrong place; show the two triangles belong together.
• Triangle, hexagon, square — emphasise that the unit can have three different shapes and still repeat neatly.

This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

Call a unit, send one pupil to lay three full repeats, then ask the class does every repeat match? before moving on. Rotate four pupils across the prompts. Watch for a unit that gets cut short or restarted in the wrong place — pause and have the class point to where one unit ends and the next begins.

This round is the practice bank — pupils take turns at the board, check each answer, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.

For the gap and the 10th-shape prompts, ask which shape sits there, and how do you know? before the check. For the 10th shape, bracket the units along the line so the class can see two shapes make one unit and five whole units reach the 10th place — let pupils count units rather than redraw all ten.

Keep this brief. Link the unit idea forward: counting in fives is itself a repeating step.