Students practice their handwriting skills, tracing, and writing numbers with this fun pattern recognition activity.

Each page features nine boxes with a series of six dotted digits. At the end of each line of dotted digits are three blank handwriting lines. Students trace the numbers in the series and then write the last three numbers themselves.

For example, one series of dotted numbers is 5 9 9 5 9 9. Students trace those numbers. Then they write 5 9 9 on the blank lines.

Each page contains an example at the top. Students still trace the first five numbers in the series, but they also get to trace the remaining three numbers in the blank lines to see how to complete the remaining problems.

Young students can learn how to recognize and write numbers clearly when given the ability to trace and practice writing numbers. When you combine handwriting number practice with patterns, students also get to predict what comes next, which can help them build the foundation to solve more complex math problems as they get older.

An easy way to get started is to ask students to trace the first five numbers in a series. Then, they can write the final three numbers. This gives them practice writing numbers the correct way, and they also get to reference what they traced so they can write the numbers correctly on their own.

You can have students trace numbers on a number line and ask them to fill in the digits that are missing. Then, you can talk about what the missing numbers have in common. For example, you can have students fill in every other number so you can talk about even numbers.