Five Little Ducks

Title: Five Little Ducks

Author and Illustrator: Mary Gruetzke (Author) Ivan Bates (Illustrator)

Recommended Reading Level: Preschool through 2nd Grade

Common Core Standards Addressed:

CCSS.Math.Content.K.OA.A.1
Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings¹, sounds (e.g., claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations.

CCSS.Math.Content.K.OA.A.2
Solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g., by using objects or drawings to represent the problem.

CCSS.Math.Content.K.OA.A.3
Decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 5 = 2 + 3 and 5 = 4 + 1).

Summary: This book is about a mother duck and her five little ducklings who like to wander off. Each day the mother duck lets the ducklings outside to play and explore. However she finds that every time she calls them back, one less duckling will return home, until finally none of the ducklings return home. Upset that her babies disappeared, she is happy when her ducklings all return to her.

Rating: ***** This book is fantastic for young children. The story is simple and easy to follow, especially being written in a rhyming pattern. The illustrations are lovely. And best of all, it can easily be adjusted for differentiation amongst students, based on their academic levels and/or their preferred mode of learning.

Classroom Ideas: Depending on the level of the students being taught, this book can be used for teaching and reinforcing concepts of counting down from the number 5, subtraction, and decomposing numbers. The book comes along with an accompanying song, which would be a great way to introduce it to the children for memorization. Young students could reenact the story in different ways, such as dramatic play, creating stick puppets, or a felt board. Whereas more advanced students could also use manipulatives and drawings to show how the number of ducklings was decreasing, and begin to write the number formula for subtraction. For teaching about decomposing, teachers can use pipe cleaners and beads to create number bracelets for the number 5, with each bead representing one of the ducklings. The children can use the bracelets and drawings to see all the different ways the number 5 can be decomposed.