Dawdle Duckling
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Dawdle Duckling Curriculum Connections  Duck Curriculum Connections

Dawdle Duckling has curriculum connections in both Science and Language Arts content areas. It may be used to address three of the six Science Content Standards K-4 as published by the National Research Council in National Science Education Standards.

  CONTENT STANDARD A—Science as Inquiry

  CONTENT STANDARD C—Life Sciences

  CONTENT STANDARD F—Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

Dawdle Duckling also offers many curriculum connections in the Language Arts.  It may be used to address five of the 12 standards as published in Standards for the English Language Arts by the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) and the IRA (International Reading Association):

Standard 3 (strategies for comprehension, interpretation, evaluation, and appreciation of texts)

Standard 5 (strategies for writing and using writing process elements)

Standard 6 (applied knowledge of language, media, and genre)

Standard 7 (research process)

Standard 8 (use of technology in research and communication)

Many of these Science and Language Arts content standards can be addressed when working with Dawdle Duckling.  In addition, Mapping the Cove addresses Social Studies standards, while many of the activities, particularly Researching Ducks, address Information Literacy standards.

For a full chapter of standards based curriculum activities for Dawdle Duckling, see the book Toni Buzzeo and YOU.

Most students are familiar with ducks from their earliest days.  Yet there are many facts to learn about ducks, their habitats, their adaptations, and their life cycles that will extend children’s knowledge.  To learn more about ducks in the wild, read Ducks Don’t Get Wet by Augusta Goldin (Revised Edition, Harpercollins, 1999) and Ducks by Gail Gibbons (Holiday House, 2001).

FIND OUT MORE

About the Author: Students may wonder what life experiences led Toni Buzzeo to write a duck story.  Read more about her friend Mike and her son Topher and view photographs, at her website.

About Teaching about Ducks: Explore the topic of duck teaching from the links on the author's webpage. 

About Wetland Habitats.  Consider subscribing to Ducks Unlimited Puddler magazine for children up to age 11.  For only $10 a year, your class can join as a Greenwing member and receive four issues of the magazine.

SAMPLE CURRICULUM ACTIVITIES (A complete standards-based curriculum guide for Dawdle Duckling is available in the book Toni Buzzeo and YOU)

Researching Ducks:  When Toni Buzzeo wrote Dawdle Duckling, she researched mallards, a common duck where she lives in Maine, and included details about them in her story.  But there are many different kinds of ducks in the world.  Ask students, in groups, to research four different ducks that live in the United States: mallard, wood duck, ring-necked, and American black. 

Quacky Vocabulary: Dawdle Duckling is rich in interesting vocabulary.  Make a class glossary for the book, using your favorite dictionary to define the words and student illustrations.  For primary grades students, words you might consider including are:
 

  dawdles  dips  downy  dreams  dunks  flaps 

  fluff  flutters  foamy  leaps  nibbles  nips 

  paddles  plays  preens  quacks  spins  splashes 

  splatters  spray  sprouting  tasty  trail  zigzag 

Mapping the Cove: Encourage students to create a wall map of Dawdle’s habitat by drawing the various locations in Dawdle Duckling on a large piece of chart paper.  Before beginning, study the geographic terms in the story with students (bay, cove, shore, marsh, island).  As a group, work to define these terms using context clues and a dictionary.  When the map is complete, students may practice reciting the story and retracing the ducks’ routes.  As an introduction to mapping for young children, you may want to begin by reading Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney (Dragonfly, 1998) and Mapping Penny’s World by Loreen Leedy (Henry Holt, 2000).

Follow the link to a District of Columbia classroom unit on school and classroom rules featuring Dawdle Duckling!