Books:
Just Ducky by Kathy Mallat
Animals on the Farm: Ducks by Wendy Strobel Dieker
Quack and Count by Keith Baker
Goose Needs a Hug by Tad Hills

Opening Activity: Quick! Touch your toes, eyes, ears, tummy, knees, floor, clap your hands!

Sing: Welcome Song: If you are ready for a story, clap your hands!

Parent Welcome: Thank you for joining us in Storytime today! Every child, like adults, has a bad day, so if you child is needing a break, please step outside the room with them so they can calm down and not disrupt the other children. However, when your child is ready, please rejoin us again! Also, pretend there is an invisible circle around my easel. This is where I have lots of our props. If your child goes inside this circle, please gently pull them back so they do not block the view for the other children. Let’s get started!

Introduce topic: Look at the books I have! What do you guess we will be talking about today? Ducks? Yes! And, what sound do ducks make? “Quack, quack, quack!  Can you say that with me?

Read: Just Ducky by Kathy Mallat

This is a very sweet book. Duck needs a friend to play with, but all his friends, Bee, Mouse, and Frog, are busy. He goes for a swim and finds his reflection in the water. Thinking it is another duck, they play together all day. The older kids in Storytime got that he was just playing with his own reflection, which made it fun. I also had a bee, mouse, and frog puppet, so I gave those out to three of the kids in Storytime, and they held it up when it was their page.

Possible Aside for parents: Missed the aside this week! Whoops!

Write: I wrote the letter D on our white board, and asked if the kids knew the letter, and what sound the letter made. I then wrote the word, “Duck” below the T. For fun, I asked the kids to help me find the letter D in the word duck. I pointed at the u, then the c, then the k, to the kids great amusement, and then I finally pointed to the letter D. Kids like it when adults make mistakes and they can correct them, and what a great way to reinforce letter recognition. I then asked the kids what other words began with a “D” sound. We had lots of nonsense words, all beginning with a “D” sound, which made it fun.

Read and Talk: Animals on the Farm: Ducks by Wendy Strobel Dieker

Good non-fiction books for early readers about Ducks. Pictures show different colored feathers, and we had a discussion about the oil on duck’s feathers help the ducks float. The book also gave a new vocabulary word for many of us. A drake is a male duck. Femail ducks are just called ducks.

Sing:
-Popcorn Kernels,
-1, 2 Shake it on Your Shoe,
-Scarves up!

Read:  Quack and Count by Keith Baker

I asked the kids to show me 7 fingers. 5 + 2=7. We had to count them all to make sure. As we read through the book, I asked the kids to continue showing me on their fingers all the ways we could make 7. It did not always work out perfectly, but it was an early math introduction through a book.

Read: Goose Needs a Hug by Tad Hills

Very good, and quick, board book to end Storytime on. At the end, I asked the kids to give a hug to the “big person who brought you to Storytime”. Lots of smiles.

Closing Song: Tickle the Stars

How it went:
Ducks are a fun Storytime theme! All the kids loved making duck noises. I really need to work on my flannelboards. I know that there are many fun activities we can do with them in this theme, so that is my goal.