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This week I made a rare venture into semi-structured crafting with my kids, creating this simple printable free coloring page (see download link at the end of this post) to go along with Five Little Ducklings, one of the books that is free this week as part of the MeMeTales Summer Readathon. We read the book yesterday, and this morning I gave each kid the page, with no other instructions. It was fun to see what they did with it!
Six-year-old Emma stayed very traditional, coloring the ducks various shades of yellow. Each of the kids posed their own ducks for the photo shoot, and she picked a very orderly line-up of ducklings following their mama:
Four-year-old Johnny’s ducks have fantastic eyes (I had considered adding a single eye on each duck as part of the printable, and seeing this made me so glad that I hadn’t!) I’m particularly fond of the Picasso-esque duckling leading the group. Notice that he has the mama following the ducklings, instead of the other way around!
Two-year-old Lily’s duckling décor appears to be inspired by our child-decorated castle – which she was, incidentally, working on this past weekend. Her ducks have eyes, too, although they are a bit hard to spot. I can find them most easily on the mama duck, as well as the two lead babies. I thought it was interesting that she clustered her babies around the mama, instead of lining them up like her older siblings.
You can also cut these ducks out of felt to use on a felt or flannel board, or cut out two of each duck and let your child sew them together – either with stuffing in the middle, or random stitching the way we did these flowers and trees. Click on the image below to download the printable:
And, since it’s animal week for the MeMeTales Readathon, here are a few other animal-themed books that we adore:
- Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear?
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
- Make Way For Ducklings
- The Gruffalo
- When Dinosaurs Came with Everything
Disclosure: We receive free copies of the Readathon books that I write about for the Readathon, and the books at the end of this post are linked through my Amazon Affiliate account.
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These are super adorable!! It’s neat to see how kids each interpreted and colored their ducks :) Thanks for including the printable.
Visit jen@plain vanilla mom … Ice Ice Baby
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maryanne Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 8:07 am
Thanks! It was fun to see how much my kids enjoyed this – and how they each put their own spin on it!
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Thanks for the printable. It is so interesting to see all of your kids’ different personalities come out. I love your idea!
Visit Bethany @ No Twiddle Twaddle … Readathon Week 1: Find the Baby Ducklings
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These are each spectacular in their own way. I’m especially impressed with the eyes Johnny added and Lily’s vibrant yet not overlapping colours. Are you going to keep them on display in your house?
Visit Elisa | blissfulE … playground fun at Donnybrook
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maryanne Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 10:12 am
We’re laminating them so they can play with them :)
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They’re super cute. Do you know if the Nook app is out yet?
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maryanne Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 10:14 am
Looks like it isn’t yet, unfortunately. Hopefully by the end of the week!
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maryanne Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 10:57 am
You can access the books on a laptop or desktop computer by going to memetales.com…
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How awesome! I am amazed by the differences between ducks. Johnny is getting to be quite an artist too – his eyes are very realistic!
Visit Natalie … Week In Review–June 17, 2012
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maryanne Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 10:57 am
I was surprised (in a good way!) at how differently they each approached the project!
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That is so cool to see how they did the craft. I am like Emma and would so have yellow ducks! I can’t believe how cool Johnny made the eyes! That is really near. And Lily went all out with her ducks, too cute! He coloring is very nice, especially for how young she is!
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So many ways to use this printable – not really structured at all! Really a great idea and printable – thanks!
Visit Ann … Mother Rabbit’s Latest
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Love how they colored and arranged their ducks! So different yet they all look fantastic!
Visit Jen … capturing fireworks :: long exposure photography
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These are so cute :) I love the differences between their ducks and the eyes on Lily’s duck are so similar to how J is drawing his eyes at the moment as well.
Visit Cerys @ Rainy Day Mum … Tuesday Tots – Animals and Books
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Love it. We’ve been doing some ducky stuff here to go with the Summer Virtual Book Club – don’t know how I missed out on Meme – so many things pass through KBN!! Have you seen the post from the nurterstore on five little ducks? I featured back in April on my blog, along with a post I did about The Ugly Duckling. http://nurturestore.co.uk/ducks-number-line-song-vlog-painting
Visit Jen Fischer … Summer Virtual Book Club: Mo Willems-The Duckling Gets a Cookie (Toddler Does Too!)
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maryanne Reply:
June 19th, 2012 at 8:58 pm
I loved that post from NurtureStore! And your Mo Willems activities for “The Duckling Gets a Cookie” are fantastic!
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That is a great printable!
I love how different they all are!
Visit sherri … OUR HIDDEN GEM!!!!
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maryanne Reply:
June 21st, 2012 at 8:48 am
I love that too – took me by surprise!
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It’s nice to see how children who have been given freedom of expression, express themselves in very different ways!
You might also like 10 Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle. It is one of the books I am taking to Cambodia to train the teachers in Svay Pak. It fits in perfect with your 5 Little Ducks.
http://waddleeahchaa.com/2012/04/16/kinesthetic-number-concepts-for-preschool-book-of-the-week-giveaway/
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maryanne Reply:
June 21st, 2012 at 12:18 pm
I’ll check out your post – love Eric Carle!
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what a fun activity. i find it so interesting the variance in their arrangements… i suppose there’s a way to decipher meaning in them, huh? thanks for linking up to tip-toe thru tuesday!
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These are really cute. I found them via pinterest and I printed them out last week and took it a step further and made them into stick puppets to go along with a song. Wrote about it in my blog here. Thank you!
Visit Michelle … 5 Little Ducks Activity
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maryanne Reply:
June 23rd, 2012 at 11:57 am
Fantastic! Off to check out your post :)
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I love how your idea was still open-ended enough to allow for creativity!
Visit Trisha @ Inspiration Laboratories … The Sunday Showcase Featuring Summer Science Fun
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These are way too cute! I love how each child showed his/her own personality in the coloring. What a great addition to the reading. Thanks for sharing with The Sunday Showcase!
Visit Allison … Kindergarten Curriculum and MFW Weekly Wrap Up
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I love this activity, the ducks are so sweet! Love how they are all so different!
Glad you shared with us at tip toe thru tuesday!
xoxo
Kim
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Oh, I love the free printable! Thank you! Ducks are really hard to draw ( to me anyway lol) Thanks for sharing with Tuesday Tots last week!
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maryanne Reply:
June 26th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Thank you, Crystal! I was very pleased with my ducks :)
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These are super cute – we always end up with two eyes on one side too!
I’m featuring this post on this week’s Sunday Showcase – hope you stop by to link up again!
Thanks,
Charlotte
makedoandfriend.com
Visit Charlotte … MemeTales Readathon – StickFiggy Makes a Friend #readforgood
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maryanne Reply:
June 26th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Thank you, Charlotte!
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So much fun to see!
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maryanne Reply:
June 29th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Thank you, Jane!
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LOVE how differently each of them made their ducks! That is the best part! Crafts can be individualized and open ended and that is what you have done here! Bravo!
Thanks for sharing on the Sunday Showcase
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I love Lily’s version of the ducks. I love how she made them so colorful (and yes, I noticed the cute little eyes too). Haha. It’s really adorable when our kids become imaginative and become artists on their own cute ways.
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Olivia…
Been looking around yandex for sites about ducks today. Good Stuff :-)…
I love the print-out. Thanks. Did the children cut the ducks out themselves or did you cut them? I teack Pre-K and the children are doing pretty well with cutting, however, most of the things we cut are large in size. The duck are small and there are a few students that may have some difficulty.
Can’t wait to use this with the children.
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MaryAnne Reply:
April 21st, 2013 at 9:36 pm
My 4yo cut out his, but if you look at them (middle photo with the blue lines) he didn’t cut on the lines, but around. My 6yo was able to cut them out without any trouble, and I cut out the multicolored ones that my 2yo colored. The design of the ducks makes them a bit tricky to cut out if you are following the lines.
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