This activity, from YouCubed.org’s Week of Inspirational Math, is a great way to start a class, especially if you will be looking at factoring, division or the properties of numbers: prime/composite, odd/even, etc. The activity can be as simple as handing out the image below and asking students to write the number they see above each patter, then asking them to use markers or colored pencils to show some of the patterns they found.

See the attached pdf for a full lesson plan. Visit the YouCubed link above for other similar lesson plans.