✦Bill Martin Jr · Reading companion
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Share your copy and explore colour words, repeated patterns, and the details you notice around you.
A book to read together
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Original prompts to use with your copy.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is written by Bill Martin Jr and illustrated by Eric Carle. Use a family or library copy with these original Curiosi prompts about colour, repetition, and careful observation. Readers can name, point, gesture, or match objects in ways that work for them.
Find a detail you can describe
Before reading, choose an everyday object nearby. Describe its colour, shape, or texture, then ask the child to add a different detail. Look at the book’s cover together and invite an observation. Colour names can vary between people and languages; a shape or position can be a useful clue too.
Notice what repeats
While reading your copy, invite the child to signal when they hear a familiar pattern. Ask what stays the same and what changes. A child who wants to join in can do so from the book; another can listen or point. Pause occasionally to connect a spoken word with a detail in the picture.
Explain how pictures help
After reading, revisit a spread the child selects. Ask how the picture helps them understand the words. Which detail caught their attention? Compare two visual details without listing the book’s full sequence. Invite the child to explain what they noticed before offering your own answer, and welcome observations about shape as well as colour.
Build an observation-card set
Draw four everyday objects on separate pieces of reused paper, such as a cup, sock, umbrella, and watering can. Give each a colour you choose. Match them to paper swatches, then sort them a different way, perhaps by shape or use. A partner explains the sorting rule and suggests another arrangement.
Your turn to read
Keep the conversation going
There is no single right answer. Invite young readers to notice, wonder and imagine.
What detail did you notice first?
What stayed the same in a repeated pattern?
How could you sort your cards without using colour?
Make something: Choose one card from your own set. Give a partner two clues about its shape or use while keeping it hidden. Discuss which clue helped most, then try again with another card.
