We have been studying Eric Carle books as a part of our November unit of study. Many of his books follow patterns. We also visited his website and watched a short video clip which shows how he makes his original illustrations. In the video clip we also got to see his musuem. It looks like a great place for a short trip. We went on Mapquest to see how far away Amherst is. It is 2 hours away, so it looks like this would make a great family field trip.
http://www.ericcarle.com/