Take Away Teaching Ideas #43: One Little Duck

One Little Duck

By: Katrina Germein and Danny Snell

Published: 2023
Publisher: Harper Collins Children’s Books

A fun twist on the song ‘Five Little Ducks’, this delightful story from the award-winning duo Katrina Germein and Danny Snell is destined to become a new classic.

Themes: Families • Animals • Natural World • Belonging • Humour

I had the absolute delight to chat to Katrina about another of her amazing book – Wonderful Wasps. I urge you to check out all her titles.

Katrina was very generous with her time and sharing her expertise. She even showed us her Writer’s Notebooks. In fact, Katrina was inspiring!

Have fun reading – singing this beautiful story 😊

My teaching ideas for you!

• Sing and role play the song – Five Little Ducks.
• Set up a provocation table of farm animals.
  • What animals do you know?
  • What do we call the animals?
  • What do they look like?
  • What sounds do they make?
• Scribe the learners’ ideas for animal sounds onto large speech bubbles. How can I write these sounds? Join two speech bubbles and fill with shredded paper to make them three dimensional.
• Wear the words! Thread the words of the title – One Little Duck – beads, numbers and animal images onto string to wear.
• Explore the front cover of the book and notice the butterflies. Print butterflies with paint, trim and hang in your classroom.
• Add flower pot plants or a vase of flowers in your classroom. Make connections to the front cover. Use senses to draw, talk and write about the flowers.
• What other animals can you see on the front cover? Implement shared writing to co-construct the list of animals.
• Begin reading (or singing) the story and wonder about the rhyme with your learners. What words rhyme in the story? What other words can be added to the rhyming word families?
• Explore responding the punctuation marks in the story. What do we do as a reader?
• The learners select words to be scribed onto individual cards. Initiate a word sort – What words go together? Why? Sort, photograph and then sort again.
• Use mathematical materials to show the collections for each page of the story.
• Create puppets to retell the story.
• Sequence the story by creating a mobile. Draw each character and display in order of the story.
• Did Mother Duck’s feelings change in the story? Why? Draw the events to show the feelings change.
• What were the animals doing? Do you like camping? Create a camping scene in the classroom.
• What book were the animals reading in the tent? Survey to find out the book your class would be reading in the tent.
• What are other options? What could the animals be doing instead of camping? Paint or draw your ideas to share.

This story is a pure joy to read!