Five Little Ducks

Everyone knows the rhyme 5 Little Ducks went swimming one day and this is an excellent rhyme to use to start teaching children about counting and about ducks. Here are some ideas!

Activity ideas:
Different activities will be suitable for children of different ages so you may be able to revisit this list over a number of years!

• Go and feed the ducks
• Play with bath ducks in water
• Share rhymes about ducks (see suggestions below)
• Share books about ducks (see suggestions below)
• Play with the 5 Little Ducks Teaching Song Mitt
• Draw and colour pictures of ducks
• Talk about the noise ducks make - you could play listening games and listen for the duck
• Talk about where ducks live
• Talk about the lifecycle of ducks from eggs, to ducklings to grown up ducks

Songs and Rhymes
The most popular duck rhyme has to be 5 Little Ducks went swimming one day (start with 3 for younger children!), this is a rhyme that varies everywhere it is sung but here is our version!

Five little ducks went swimming one day,
Over the pond and far away,
Mummy Duck said "quack, quack, quack, quack",
But only four little ducks came back.

Repeat with four little ducks, then three, then two, then one until 'no little ducks came swimming back'. Then we sing:

Daddy duck went swimming one day ,
Over the pond and far away,
Mummy Duck said "quack, quack, quack, quack",
And all the ducks came swimming back.

Another rhyme is:

Five little ducks that I once knew,
Three were fat and skinny were two,
But the one little duck,
With the feather on his back,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack.

Down to the river they would go,
Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, to and fro,
But the one little duck,
With the feather on his back,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack.

Back from the river they would come,
Wibble, wobble, wibble, wobble, ho, hum, hum,
But the one little duck,
With the feather on his back,
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack,
Quack, quack, quack
He led the others with a quack, quack, quack.

Lastly,

Isn't it a bit of luck
That I was born a baby duck
With yellow socks and yellow shoes
I can go wherever I choose?
Quack, quack, quack quack

Books

There are many books based on the 5 Little Ducks song, my favourite is

• Five Little Ducks by Penny Ives

Other 'duck' books include:

• One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root and Jane Chapman
• Nine Ducks Nine by Sarah Hayes
• Duck (Read & Learn: Life Cycles) by Richard Spilsbury
• From Egg to Duck (How Things Grow) by Sally Morgan
• I am a Duck by Linda Bygrave