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10
Little Rubber Ducks
by Eric Carle
10 Little Rubber Ducks is one of our favorite Eric Carle books, partially due to the colorful, perky illustrations and partially due to the fact that the story is based on an actual cargo ship accident that set 29,000 plastic ducks, turtles and frogs adrift in the ocean.Eric Carle's version scales the spill down to a more 'manageable' ten duckies adrift. 10 Little Rubber Ducks tells their story from production in a factory to 10 of them falling into the sea during a storm, seeing different oceanic sites, and finally ding their way to a different location.
Ordinal numbers (shown as "1st" as opposed to "first") are used for
each duck and printed in bold, making it a great resource for teaching
ordinal numbers. School Library Journal called it "a definite 10." We
agree. It's adorable and kids love it. It's hard to go wrong with Eric Carle!
Interest
Level: Preschool - Grade 1
Below are the first three spreads, just to give you an idea of the
illustrations---although who isn't already familiar with Carle's
stunning collages. This takes place at the beginning of the book, when
the little ducks are being loaded onto the cargo ship.
10 Little Rubber Ducks Lesson / Activity Ideas
Share the Real Story
Kids love hearing the
real story that inspired Eric Carle to write this book. The idea of
thousands of little rubber ducks (along with other bathtub toys like
beavers, turtles and frogs) floating out at sea for a decade and
finally washing up on the shores of New England is almost unbelievable!
For the specifics of the story to share with your class,
click here.
UEN Paper Ducks
Activity
The Utah Education
Network website lists a fun, interactive lesson / activity to go with
this book. In short, the teacher reads the book, then has
students try to retell the story using ordinal numbers and perhaps even
reference to the idea that the ducks went in different
directions---NSEW--although they certainly won't remember which duck
does with which direction!. After that, each student
is given a paper with ducks on it, which they cut out and color the
ducks, then make the ducks follow the directions given. Also,
the students line up the ducks on their desk and point to the ordinal
position that the teacher says. For a full description of the 10 Little Rubber Ducks lesson / activity and the duck handout, visit the
UEN page here. (Scroll down.)
Where to now?
Now that you've seen this great book, what would you like to see now? Please note that as an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
