10 activities for "Ten Little Rubber Ducks" (Eric Carle)

Planning an Eric Carle unit in your classroom?  A duck theme in your preschool?  Or maybe you just want some cute ideas to do at home with your own child.

I've rounded up the best of the internet for you!  TEN different activities, games, and crafts to use with Eric Carle's book "Ten Little Rubber Ducks"

(In this based-on-real-events story, a shipping crate containing ten rubber duck toys spills into the ocean.  Eric Carle describes which direction each duck went and what ocean creature that duck met along the way.  The ending is sweet with a little surprise)

1. Art and Math

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The blog Adventures in Reading With Kids had a lot of great duck ideas.  For this one, children get ten ducks and add the eye and the red beak.  Then they paint a paper to look like the ocean and glue on the ducks once it is dry.  To extend this activity for at home, she covered it with contact paper and then numbered the ducks.  Next, she numbered an extra set of ducks and PRESTO, a matching game!

2. Subtraction

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Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten blog used this duck activity.  Put rubber ducks on a mat (the pond!) and roll the dice to see how many to subtract.  I'm going to adapt this for younger kids by simply having them roll the die and put that number of ducks into the pond.

3. Clip Art and Puppets

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Kindergarten Nana has THE most adorable clip art for you to print.  These go along with all the characters that the ducks meet in the book.  I'm going to print, color, and laminate and turn them into either Popsicle stick puppets or magenetic pieces children can use to retell the story.

4. Color/Shape Match

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Kinder Friends Learning shares this fun rubber duck idea.  Gather your duckies and put a color or shape on the bottoms, kids try to find the matching pairs.  Would be really cute in a small baby pool (with or without water depending on if you can go outside).

5. Ducky Stamping
Did you know you can use the bottom of the ducks to stamp with ink?  I didn't, but Deborah from Teach Preschool did!

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6. Water Table Fun

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Add duckies to your water table!  Encourage students to count all ten, make a line and identify which is first or second, etc (ordinal numbers)

7. Are you really brave?

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If you answered yes, then you may try the footprint duck painting shown!

8. Sponge Painting

Cut sponges into duck shapes, provide the paper and paint, and let the kids go to town! From Teacher's Land

9. True Story!
Tell the true story of the rubber ducks that inspired Eric Carle's book!  Here is the link to the BBC article.

10. Music

Time to sing "5 Little Ducks"!  Kids love this song, it is repetitive so they can catch on quickly, they get to make animal sounds, and as a bonus, it is educational as it teaches numbers 1-5.
"Five little ducks went out one day  (hold up 5 fingers)
over the hill and far away (arm swoops in over motion, hand above eyes looking far)
Mama duck called, (both hands around mouth to call)
'quack quack quack quack'
4 little ducks came waddling back." (hold up 4 fingers)
Continue through till no little ducks come back...then:
"No little ducks went out one day (hold up empty hands, shrug, sing sadly)
over the hill and far away
Mama duck called
'quack quack quack qucak (sad quacks. Mama misses her ducklings!)
All FIVE ducks came waddling back!" (Joyfully hold up FIVE fingers)

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Shared at Someday Crafts