Make Way for Ducklings Lapbook: Duck Related Literature

As we are working our way through Make Way for Ducklings, we are also reading lots of other books to compliment the different themes. Here are a few titles that I have found interesting, enjoyable, and helpful.

1. Hunwick’s Egg by Mem Fox – This is a sweet book about how Hunwick finds an “egg” and everyone waits for it to hatch.
2. Cold Little Duck, Duck, Duckby Lisa Westberg Peters – This simple book is about the change of seasons and Mallard Duck migration in rhyme.
3. Dilly Duckling by Claire Freedman – Dilly loses a feather, chases it, and learns about molting.
4. Cock-A-Doodle Quack Quackby Ivor Baddiel and Sophie Jubb – This is a fun book about a young rooster who doesn’t know how to wake everyone up in the morning. It reviews the farm animal sounds.
5. Dawdle Duckling by Toni Buzzeo – This is a cute story about a duckling who doesn’t stay close to Mother duck until… Explore the number 4 with this book. Also try Ready or Not, Dawdle Duckling by the same author.
6. “Behold the Duck” by Ogden Nash – This is a simple, rhyming poem about duck behavior.
7. Duck at the Door by Jackie Urbanovic – This book is about a mallard duck who chooses not to migrate with his flock during his first winter. He knocks on Irene’s door in the middle of the night and stays for the winter. (My kids love this book! We have read it many times.)

Happy reading!

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A Traditional Literature Theme: Myths and Legends

Here are more ideas for using traditional literature in your homeschool this month. Try reading Myths and Legends.

Myths

Myths are creation tales that include supernatural activity. For a more detailed definition go to About.com.

• Spark Notes is packed with information about mythology. It can be a great resource for you as you start to learn about mythology.
• Have your children read Myths from various cultures such as Native American and Greek myths. Examine the themes that appear in those myth,s and create a grid to of those themes as a graphic organizer. You can also have your children illustrate the myths in order to help them visualize the stories better.
• Discuss the religious nature of the myths that you read. Since most myths have something to do with creation, take this opportunity to discuss creation according to the Bible. You can even make a creation lapbook with your children. I found a free creation lapbook from Lapbook Lessons.

Legends

Legends are stories partially based on fact, but have exaggerated details.

• Children of all ages, particularly boys, love legends! Who can resist the adventures of Robin Hood and King Arthur? These are great, action packed stories to read aloud.
• Write a script for a favorite legend and act it out, or simply have your children choose a favorite scene to turn into a skit.
• Since it is March, you can research the legend of St. Patrick at History.com. You can also find information about St. Patrick at RiverDeep.net
• Write a modern day Legend after examining others. Have your children include illustrations of the legendary hero and his/her adventures.

Photo courtesy of Jorge-11

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Halloween Biology

This Halloween you can opt out of the ghosts and goblins, but still use the gory spirit of the season to your advantage in your home school. You can learn about the human body. Create a lapbook or a small book reporting on the different systems or just on a particular system.

• Study the skeletal system. Construct your own skeletons and name the major bones in the body. Dissect a whole fish from the grocery story and investigate its skeleton. Learn about x-rays. Research calcium and how it is absorbed.
• Study the heart. In your book you can name the parts of the heart, include a mini report on Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (the first heart surgeon), include data from heart rate experiments, etc.
• Study hematology. Blood is quite gory! Learn about red and white blood cells and about how blood coagulates. Investigate blood typing. Contact the Red Cross to find out more about blood donation.

The ideas are endless, but hopefully this will get you thinking outside of the box. Have fun!

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Love Your Neighbor, Officer Michael

Here is yet another post about our Make Way for Ducklings lapbook. I hope your lapbook is coming along as nicely as ours is. When we have completely constructed ours, I will post pictures.

I managed to find a Biblical connection in Make Way for Ducklings. Our memory verse this week is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:39Matthew 22:39
English: World English Bible - WEB
39 A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

(The little one is memorizing “love”.) I picked this verse out because Officer Michael is so kind to the Mallard family. In the story, he goes out of his way to help the ducks by directing the traffic and calling for other police officers to stop the traffic. He didn’t have to do this; he was just treating someone else the way he wanted to be treated.

During the week, we read other Bible stories that relate to the “be kind to others theme”. The story of Ruth and Naomi is one and the other is the story of King David and Mephibosheth. I connected the theme to these other stories. We discussed how the theme applied to the memory verse. We even talked about how the verse relates to our lives.

In order to help us remember the verse, we sang it to the tune of “Frère Jacques” and “London Bridge” adding “Just like Jesus” at the end. We sang the songs throughout the day all week long. At the end of the week, the kids were able to recite their memory verses easily. They even sang the songs to Daddy.

Then we made a book in the shape of a police officer’s hat (HT: DLTK) and glued the verse inside. We simply cut out the hat and a blank piece of paper in the same shape. I printed out the memory verse and cut it out. As my kiddo said, “We used a police officer’s hat because Officer Michael was kind to the ducks in the book. The hat helps us to remember that.”

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Mallard Math

We have practiced our math skills in a variety of ways through Make Way for Ducklings. There are a few mathematical possibilities in this particular book that you might find helpful if you are also working on this particular lapbook.

Since there are eight ducklings in the book, we have practiced counting the number eight. Since my kiddos are kinesthetic learners, I need to incorparate manipulatives into our math work, and a great manipulative for this particular lesson is plastic Easter eggs. First, we sorted the eight eggs by color and counted how many eggs there were of each color. We compared which color we had more and less of. We also dabbled in addition and subtraction by adding one more egg and removing one egg. After all of that manipulative work, we made a counting book with the numbers 1-8. It’s a graduated page book. On each page the children drew the amount of eggs that correlate with the number on the page. Creating this book is also a great way to address the unique the needs of kinesthetic learners since there is a lot of interaction involved – turning the pages, drawing the eggs, counting the eggs, and coloring the eggs. My children needed a bit of guidance with staying focused on the task, but overall, this was a hit!

We also used the song “Five Little Ducks” to talk about counting backwards from 5. We used it as a finger play while I a read a great picture book of the song, Five Little Ducks illustrated by Ivan Bates. They really love this song and adding a kinesthetic piece to it just makes it more engaging. Having the visuals (pictures) also makes the song more interesting. Lessons are so much more dynamic when you weave multiple disciplines together.

Get cracking on your math skills, homeschoolers!

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Make Way for Our Next Lapbook

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey is the subject of our next lapbook. There will be a series of posts with thoughts and photos as we go through the process of this particular lapbook. I will even include titles of other books we are using. Again, I am making up my own lapbook using library and internet resources that are available for free.

I started this lapbook unit by creating a web of ideas for what we could learn about. This is a great way to get started. Based on my web, I searched the internet to see what was available. I looked at an example of what someone else had done for their lapbook on Homeschool Share, and I printed out what I intended on using for my lessons. I put together the first mini book we were going to make as well.

I introduced the book to the kids by talking about Robert McCloskey since we just read Blueberries for Sal. I read the book just for enjoyment this first time. We simply discussed the book as we went along. My kids’ bedroom is painted in a Make Way for Ducklings theme (painted by Caroline Funchion), so we talked about that connection to the book.

The next time we read the book, I wrote the ducklings’ names on our chalkboard- Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Pack, Ouack, & Quack – to use the ducklings’ names for learning about onsets and rimes. We created a flip book with the names. I wrote the letters, and my kids traced over them. The little one did not do a page for Ouack and Quack as I think it would have been too much work.

As a note for the reasoning behind this particular lesson, rhyming is a great precursor to reading. Try playing with rhymes when you’re waiting in the grocery line or at the doctor’s office. Sing rhyming songs for fun. Using onsets and rhymes is also a great strategy for figuring out unknown words when you are reading. Try pointing them out when you see a good one in a book or on the cereal box. This strategy is also helpful with writing. You can point out that a particular word rhymes with another one while you are writing and show your kids how you use that strategy.

I hope this helps you get started on your Make Way for Ducklings lapbook!

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Blueberries for Sal Lapbook

We have finally finished our very first lapbook! It is on Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. I loved making it, and I think the kids enjoyed it, too. There were so many resources online for this particular book. Although there are many commercial resources available, I chose to make up my own lapbook. I borrowed a few ideas from what is available online and came up with a few ideas of my own. Here is what we did.

My children each made a lapbook whith similar work in them. Both children wrote the letter “B” and drew pictures of “B” words and both made blue collages. They both have photos of the different kinds of bears and a bear’s den, and they both have books about our blueberry picking trip as well as a book on the life cycle of a blueberry bush. However, I modified the work for their different levels in order to meet my individual children’s needs. My older child located Maine on a map, but my younger child did not. They both made a counting book, but my older child’s book went up to 10 while my younger child’s book went up to 4. My older child dictated the text for the Full or Empty book, but my younger child just has a flap for full and a flap for empty.

Here are a few of the lessons that I learned along the way.

1. Read the text to the children a lot, and get the book on cd if at all possible. I found that my children made more interesting comments, asked better questions, and made fantastic connections to our work after reading the book many times. We listened to it in the car for days as we ran errands and visited people. A recorded version takes the pressure off of you to reread all of the time.
2. Consider the learning levels of your individual children, and modify the work if that seems most appropriate for your children.
3. Prepare the mini books ahead of time. The kids simply are not going to wait for you to construct something last minute – unless your children are more patient than mine are.
4. Think about where the mini books will be placed inside of the lapbook. You’ll want all of the work to fit into the book perfectly.
5. Be willing to toss out work that did not come out as planned. Some things are just not worthy of keeping whether your planning was the culprit or the kids just were not ready for that type of work. Don’t beat yourself up about it; just toss it.
6. Be ready to change gears. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but something on the fly works out better. Follow your instincts and try something unplanned that works better.
7. Remember to let the kids review their own work. You are making the lapbook so your child will be able to look back and reflect on all of the learning s/he did. Keep the book in an accessible place.
8. Have fun making the book! This is the most important piece. Any of the work you do with the children will result in learning, so just let go and have a great time with the kids!

I hope that this serves as an inspiration for you to try out a lapbook or two.

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