Make Way For Ducklings Lesson Plan

Hello Everyone, 

This is a little late. This was our first ever day of Little Saturday School.

How I do Little Saturday School, (LSS), is; I pick one book out to focus on. Then I find different things that will touch a bit of most subjects, to teach about. I discovered the world of lap books as I was planning the first lesson. 

*DO YOU KNOW WHAT LAP BOOKS ARE!!!!*

If not that's ok, check out this video I found on youtube, it gives you a nice little over view. I showed this to Monkey on day one, she was super excited. 

      Now that we know what lap books are, I try and make a lap book with each lesson. Monkey loves it and I truly believe they help her retain information. We did this Make Way for Ducklings lesson about a month ago, and she can still convey to me a bit of every thing we learned. And we learned a lot this time, I started this lesson out big, to kind of see what worked for us. 

Lesson Plan For Make Way For Ducklings
by Robert McCloskey

I started the day out with, our fluency sheet, Soccer Camp, I got this from TeacherSites.SchoolWorld. -They have a ton of great fluency sheets!- 

*I worked with Monkey once on Thursday (The day we started) She only got 25 wpm, by Sunday she was up to 68wpm! I can express how excited I was, in only 4 days!!*  

Little story, Monkey gets a fluency sheets at school, so back in August she got her first fluency sheet. They get a new one as soon as they can read the whole story in 1 min. It will be April in 2 days and she is still on that first fluency sheet. =( However she is not with us full time unfortunately so we do not get to help her improve. 

My process for fluency sheets

• We read it together and find all of the unknown words, or struggle words. 
• Than before we read it, we go over each of those words once.
  Eventually she has learned the word without even needing to look at them. 
• I try and have her read it twice on school days, and 3 times on the weekend.
  It may seem like a lot, but it only takes a couple mins, and is totally worth it!

We went into our Word of the Day and Number of the Day, from 2nd Grade Stuff, next

Monkey is having problems with digraph sounds and vowel sounds, so each lesson I pick a sound to focus on. We are working through the vowel sounds first. I believe they are some of the most important because the are in all words in some way. 

Vowel Sound Long "A"

I created the Word of the Day for Monkey, we used an online dictionary for the definition.

Shared Doodles

I got this great idea from, Third Grade Doodles. Every one takes a turn adding something to the picture.  We started with a blank page, and ended with this:

 <This one was original

Now to start the Book!

We read the book. 

I wasn't feeling good and I wanted to slowly ease Monkey into LSS, so I actually found a video on youtube of the book being read. Unfortunately the video I originally used was taken down.

Sentence Work Sheet.

Even though she didn't read the book, I pulled out different sentences from the book to go over, for our vowel lessons. 

We learned about Mallard Ducks, Days of the Week, and Months of the Year

I got this idea from, Home School Share, they have tons of great lap book ideas. I used a lot from there, Make Way for Ducklings, lap book.

Then we played a game of Make Way for Ducklings Candy Land!

This took a group of questions from the book, questions about long a sounds, and spelling word questions. I got the game board from, First Grade al a Carte. I created a set of cards, to go with my lesson though. 

Next we learned about Boston, also from Home School Share.

Now for math games, I gave Monkey the choice between Addition or Subtraction Board Games. 

Then we went back to some of the Home School Share activities, Food Chain, Baby and animal and their parents, put the ducklings in ABC order, and Duckling Math.

Then to end our day we awarded Monkey a Certificate of Completion!!

One thing I forgot to mention, I create a simple Power Point that keeps me on track and in order.

Here is a complete folder of the worksheets I created.

As always if you use any of the files please link it back to me. Don't forget to share me =]

Click >  Make Way for Ducklings - My Complete Lesson,

 Excluding work from others

Here are all the links to others work that I used in this lesson. They were all referenced throughout the blog, but just in case you missed one:

Lap Book Info

Soccer Camp, By Teacher Sites, School World

Number of the Day, By 2nd Grade Stuff

Shared Doodles, By Third Grade Doodles

Make Way For Duckling's Lap Book, By Home School Share

Candy Land Game Board, By First Grade al a Cart

Addition Board Game

Subtraction Board Game

***All link are to FREE downloads!!***

So far everything I use has been Free or I have created on my own. 

Thing that could have been improved!

• To much right at the beginning. I would not get rid of any thing, just spread it throughout the day. Example: Do the word of the day before or after Candy Land. But definitely keep the morning activity: Shared Doodles. 
• Spelling words, I did spelling word this first time around. However they may have been a bit much. I didn't really do anything with them. If I was completely home schooling Monkey I would encourage them. But we only do this once a week, so it becomes a side note, and unimportant, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of side notes when it comes to learning. 

-Monkey learned a lot and I learned a lot about how to get stuff going. Every lesson is exciting, both to plan and to do. She is asking to do more and more, very exciting.-

*If you see anything that you have a question about, please ask, I am here to help the best I can! If something looks like it was missed let me know.*

Thanks Bunches,

Hannah Elizabeth