Mathematics is the search for patterns and for why they hold

What to assume they know

Reading and continuing a simple run of numbers from primary school
Counting a small collection of dots or objects reliably
The idea that a claim can be tested rather than believed
No content from any other chapter of Ganita Prakash is needed; this is the first topic of the book

What they should be able to do

State the two-part account of mathematics that §1.1 gives, in the student's own words
Name several everyday settings in which the book says patterns occur
Distinguish "I have checked this in five cases" from "this must always happen"
Give one example of a pattern that survives several checks and then fails
Explain, using the book's own two examples, why an explanation can be reused far away from where it was found
Say why the book treats mathematics as an art as well as a science
Recognise that "why?" is a legitimate mathematical question and not a digression from the sum

Where it usually goes wrong

"Mathematics is a pile of rules somebody already finished." §1.1 describes an activity in the present tense — searching, discovering, explaining.
"If it works for the first few, it works." Corrected by the circle-and-chords count: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 — four doublings in a row — and then 31, not 32. Checking cases is how you find a candidate rule, never how you finish one.
"The 'why' is extra credit; the answer is the real work." §1.1 puts the explanation on the same footing as the pattern, and almost every relation in §1.4 and §1.6 is built that way — nine of the eleven are followed by a request for a reason. The two that are not are §1.4 Q3, which asks only which sequences appear, and §1.6 Q5, which hands the student its own answer in brackets.
"Patterns are things printed in maths books." The book's own list is mostly outside the book — cooking, games, throwing a ball, the weather.
"An explanation is only useful for the thing it explains." This is exactly what §1.1's two examples deny: the reason behind planetary motion turned into rocket trajectories, a use nobody was looking for when the pattern was noticed.
"Art and science are opposites, so mathematics has to be one of them." §1.1 says both, and gives the reason: the searching is itself a creative act.

Questions to check understanding

Say in your own words what mathematics is doing, according to this chapter
Give an example from your own day where a pattern is being used
Someone checks a rule in five cases and calls it proved. What is missing?
Name the branch that deals with whole-number patterns, and the one that deals with patterns among shapes
Explain why an explanation can be useful outside the situation that produced it
Both questions in the §1.1 Figure it Out are discussion prompts. The solutions appendix bound with this chapter answers the first with everyday examples (paying for produce, vehicle speeds, patterns in buildings, finding an area) and records the second as needing a teacher-and-student discussion rather than an answer — so this section carries no marked, closed-form question. Checked against the appendix page footered [1].

Examples worth working on the board

The chapter-opening band (p.1). Above the chapter title, five figures assembled from short orange strokes run across the page, each larger than the one before, starting from a single stroke. They carry no numbers, no caption and no question. Checked against p.1. Use them as the opening: the student is asked what comes next before the book has said a word.
The two export chains §1.1 gives (p.2). How stars, planets and their moons travel → the theory of gravitation → satellites of our own, and rockets sent to Mars and to the Moon. Patterns in genomes → diagnosing and curing diseases. Keep the direction of the arrows: the pattern came first, the explanation second, and the application third and furthest away.
The settings §1.1 lists (p.1). Nature; homes and schools; how the sun, moon and stars travel; shopping; cooking; throwing a ball; playing games; weather; technology. Any subset is enough for the visual — the point is breadth, not the list.
Circle and chords — a pattern that breaks. This example is added here; it is not in the book. Mark points on a circle and join every pair by a straight line, keeping the points irregularly spaced so no three lines cross at one spot. Count the regions the circle is cut into. Inputs, in order of the number of points: 1 point → 1 region; 2 → 2; 3 → 4; 4 → 8; 5 → 16; 6 → 31. Six panels, and the sixth is the whole point; the explanation does not need a seventh. Ask the class to predict the sixth value after seeing the first five. Almost everyone says 32. The point is not that doubling is a silly guess — it is an excellent guess — but that five confirmations bought no guarantee.
The first Figure it Out (p.2). Two discussion questions: where mathematics helps in ordinary life, and how it has moved humanity forward. Both carry the book's Math Talk badge, so they are meant to be argued aloud, not written.

Figures to have open

The chapter-opening band from p.1. Redraw rather than reproduce: five figures built from short strokes, growing left to right from a single stroke. Must be drawn, not lifted, and must stay unlabelled in the opening.
Circle-and-chords, six panels (1 to 6 points). Standard schematic. The 6-point panel has to be drawn accurately enough that all 31 regions are countable — no three chords through one point.
An arrow diagram of the two export chains. Standard schematic.
No table or photograph from the textbook is needed for this topic.

Where this sits in the book

NCERT Ganita Prakash, Class 6, Chapter 1 "Patterns in Mathematics", §1.1 "What is Mathematics?", pp.1–2, including the chapter-opening band on p.1 and the Figure it Out on p.2
Forward pointers inside the same chapter: §1.2 (number theory, p.2) and §1.5 (geometry, p.9)
Solutions appendix bound with this chapter file, page footered [1], for §1.1