Receptive language, Expressive language
Toddlers participate in a book sharing focused on a duck family.
[Use the plush duck or puppet to invite toddlers to a book sharing. Use a “duck voice.”]
Quack-quack. Please come on over so you can see me in our book! You can pet my soft feathers.
[Say the names of toddlers who join the gathering.
When several toddlers have joined you, use your own voice to speak to the duck.]
Mother Duck, thank you for calling us together to share a book. Some of us would like to gently pet your head.
[Move around the gathering with the duck puppet to give each toddler a turn to pet its head. Then move puppet so it is no longer seen.]
Mother Duck is going to her nest now.
[Show book cover. Point to ducks as you describe them.]
Here are the little ducks with the mother duck. The baby ducks are little.
Our book is called Five Little Ducks. Let’s find out what happens.
[Use the following strategies to share the book:
The little ducks in our story went away. The mother duck wondered where they went. What did the mother duck say to call back her babies? (“quack, quack, quack, quack”) Did the little ducks come back to the mother duck?
Five Little Ducks is a popular children’s book that may be familiar to some toddlers in your gathering. They want to tell the story! Keep in mind that other toddlers may be unfamiliar with the book and will benefit from an intentional opportunity to hear the words, look at the pictures, and talk about the story.
The recall questions suggested in the activity description are intended to support short-term memory skills and story comprehension. If toddlers seem uncertain about how to respond, reread the pertinent text or use your own words to describe the event that is the focus of your question.
Toddlers may want you to talk about some of the rich illustrations in this book. Acknowledge the interest, provide some information, and follow up with a question.
The book uses number words that are important for children to eventually know, but are not a focus of the current activity. Toddlers are not expected to count the ducks.
Extra support
Enrichment
Receptive language, Expressive language
A toddler uses a stick puppet to show the meaning of “far away” and “come back” in a book sharing about a duck family.
Be Prepared: Affix the provided picture of a little duck to a stick. Prepare a second stick puppet if you wish to use one during the activity.
This activity is for a toddler who is familiar with what happens in the Five Little Ducks story. Remind the toddler that the little ducks go far away and come back in the story. Explain that we can use a stick puppet to show what it means to go far away and to come back. Demonstrate far away and come back actions with the stick puppet while reading sentences in the book text that include these concepts. Then offer the stick puppet to the toddler to use while you share the book with strategies suggested in Option 1. Provide verbal cues and gestures to indicate when it is time in the story for the toddler to move the stick puppet in far away and come back motions. Encourage the toddler to say the key phrases with you. You can add a little humor and drama to the activity by pretending you are a surprised and happy mother duck when the ducks return.
The stick puppet offers a way to act out part of the story and connect important concepts to motor actions. It is important to be flexible about how a toddler manages the puppet. A toddler may have his/her own idea about how to show the duck going far away and coming back. A toddler may also wish to simply hold the puppet.
Extra support
Enrichment
Materials needed: Five Little Ducks by Child’s Play; other richly illustrated books about ponds or water animals, such as fish and frogs; rubber ducks and figures of other aquatic life
Place the books and related materials on a low table or defined area on the floor. Invite toddlers to use the materials to tell the story of little ducks going far away and coming back. Toddlers may wish to extend the little duck actions to frogs and fish. Little fish might swim far away, for example. Add blue fabric to support the pretend pond image.
Materials needed: 1 rubber duck for each child; Five Little Ducks by Child’s Play; plush duck or puppet; duck-related books such as Little Quack by Lauren Thompson, A Cuddle for Little Duck by Claire Freedman, and The Little Duck by Phoebe Dunn.
Invite younger and older children in your setting to join a toddler in Option 2. In addition to sharing the Five Little Ducks book, invite children to move their ducks as you sing the “Five Little Ducks” song. Babies will enjoy holding a duck and listening to the song.
Toddlers and older children will enjoy sharing the other duck-related books with you.
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