Story Patterns

Brown Bear, Brown Bear 
by Bill Martin Jr.

Christmas Patterns:
Little child, little child. What do you see? I see a candy cane tempting me...
Little one, little one. What do you hear? I hear bells, Santa is near...
Children, children. What do you see? We see Santa by our tree...
Santa, Santa, who do you see? I see Alex looking at me...
Santa’s elf, Santa’s elf, what do you see? I see a drum, as blue as can be...

Halloween Patterns
Black witch, black witch, what do you see?... Full moon, green goblin, white ghost, haunted house, creepy
spider, scary children.
Mummy, mummy what do you see? ... Black cat, vampire, three-headed monster, Godzilla, phantom,
werewolf, skeleton, ugly witch, graveyard.

Other:
Sunflower, sunflower, what do you see? ... Yellow sun, garden, scarecrow, black crow, spotted bug, green
aphid, red leaf, caterpillar, winter.
Coyote, coyote, what do you see? ... little mouse, snake, butterfly
African: ... Orange orangutan, orange orangutan... red rhinoceros, yellow yak, grey gorilla, blue baboon,
green giraffe, white wildebeest, and a kindergarten safari...

Have You Seen My Cat?
by Eric Carle

Basic Pattern:
Have you seen my cat? This is not my cat.
(repeated)
Have you seen my cat? This is my cat!

Variations:
Have you seen our reindeer?
Have you seen our woolly mammoth?
Have you seen our caterpillar?
Have you seen our teacher?
Have you seen our car?

Tips:  Use clip art or pictures from the Internet to help children with discriminating the qualifying features of any item. For example, with the reindeer, the final one was an actual picture of a caribou. All reindeer are a type of caribou. 

In The Woods

Pattern:
A ________ lives in the woods.
...
What else lives in the woods?

Variation 1:
Use names to fill in the blanks.
E.g. animals
      dinosaurs
      birds
      people
      story character

Variation 2:
Change the setting to create new story opportunities.
e.g. A shark lives in the ocean...
      A lion lives in the Serengeti...
      A bass lives in the lake...
      A salmon lives in the river...
      A walrus lives in the Arctic...
      A kangaroo lives in the outback...

Variation 3:

Select one animal and complete all the possible habitats where it may be found.
E.g.  A rabbit lives in the woods.
       A rabbit lives in a hutch.
       A rabbit lives in the grasslands.
       A rabbit lives in Easterland.

I Went Walking

I Went Walking

I went walking. What did you see? I saw a yellow dog looking at me.
etc. End with I saw lots of animals looking at me.

I Went to Africa

I went to Africa. What did you see? I saw a zebra looking at me. (wildebeest, giraffe, rhino, hippo, giraffe, elephant, warthog, meerkat, baboon, chimpanzee, gorilla, monkey, cheetah, lion, tiger, leopard) End with I saw a kindergarten safari looking at me.