AB Pattern with Animals

On this Kindergarten pattern sheet, animals repeat two-by-two in an AB pattern — one picture, then another, then the first again — and the child places pictures in the blank wagons to extend it. Reading that two-part repeat and predicting the next picture is early patterning, the core readiness skill of finding and following a rule. Familiar pictures like a cat, a sheep and a hen keep the focus on the alternating pattern.

The value of an AB pattern is its clarity: two pictures, one simple rule, endlessly extendable. A Kindergarten child practises finding the rule and carrying it forward — the heart of patterning — and the familiar animals keep the focus on the rhythm rather than on figuring out the pictures.

Children who get the hang of the AB back-and-forth start predicting the next picture at a glance, and finishing a clean alternating train feels satisfying, a small and clear early win. When this feels easy, try the pattern in ab pattern with household things, or ab pattern with more birds. You can also browse every pattern worksheet or the whole kindergarten collection — each sheet prints cleanly or plays online for free, and the more two-part patterns a child completes, the readier they are for patterns where a picture starts to double — the natural next step up the ladder.