Provide a variety of duck-themed centers for preschoolers.
Ducks are a favorite lesson theme for preschoolers. Young children are curious about the world around them. They learn with hands-on experiences, listening to books and looking at books and pictures. Duck-themed ideas help children learn and discover through a variety of center activities. Provide several different duck activities for your preschoolers to experience.
Introduce Ducks
Prepare the preschoolers for duck-themed centers. Read some books, including fiction stories such as Eric Carle's "Ten Little Rubber Ducks," and factual books like Etta Kaner's "Have You Ever Seen a Duck in a Raincoat." Present facts about ducks such as their webbed feet, how they waddle instead of walking, how water runs off their feathers rather than making them wet, and also what ducks eat. Show pictures of different ducks, especially those that show the difference between the white domestic ducks and wild ducks, like mallards and wood ducks. Each day you focus on the duck theme, present the same facts and encourage preschoolers to tell what they remember about ducks.
Water Center
Rubber ducks will help children learn that ducks float on water.
Provide some child-sized swim fins. Have preschoolers spread their fingers and push water with their hands. Have them put the fins onto their hands to discover how quickly a duck's webbed feet helps it move through the water compared to feet (their fingers) without webs. Encourage two or more children to have duck races in the water table. Place rubber ducks in the water and have each child move their duck along from one side to the other by making waves and not touching the ducks. Let the children experiment with things that float and things that sink. Provide feathers, pebbles, blocks, sponges, boiled eggs (to represent eggs with the contents inside), and empty plastic eggs. Supervise the water table and encourage learning with discussions about the water activities.
Art Center
Help preschoolers create a picture of baby ducklings swimming on a pond.
Provide reproduced pictures of simple duck shapes, webbed duck feet and feathers. Preschoolers can practice using blunt-ended scissors to cut out the shapes. Have crayons, markers or paint pens available for the children to finish their artwork. They may also tape craft feathers on to their duck or the paper feather. At the paint easel, encourage the children to paint a piece of paper yellow like a baby duck and another piece of paper blue like a pond of water. When the two papers dry, trace and cut out one or more duck shapes from the blue painting, preserving the painting as best as possible. Take time to help each child glue the blue painting over the yellow one, and show the children how their paintings now look like baby ducks swimming on a pond.
Puppet Center
Help children understand that ducks walk on dry ground, swim and fly.
Provide duck puppets or white and yellow socks for the children to slip over their hands. Spread out some plastic insects and small toy fish, round crackers and green plants. Have the children pretend to be mama or baby ducks eating. Discuss what ducks typically eat. Encourage the children to make their ducks waddle across the floor, float on a pretend pond and fly through the air.
