Lesson Plan: Duddle Puck, The Puddle Duck (Karma Wilson)

Title:  Duddle Puck: The Puddle Duck

Author:  Karma Wilson

Illustrator:  Marcellus Hall

Book Cover Summary:  Little Duddle Puck is a funny puddle duck who…CLUCKS, HONKS, OINKS, NEIGHS…and never, ever quacks! Now it's up to the other farm animals to teach Duddle how a proper puddle duck should sound. 

First Lines:  Silly Duddle Puck was a funny puddle duck. All the critters said he was a very odd duck.        

Grade Levels:  Preschool-Kindergarten

What I Like About It:  The story and illustrations are humorous.  Duddle is a quirky and fun character.  The language is rich.  Children are sure to love hearing it over and over again.  




Possible Teaching Opportunities

Animals Sounds

Prediction Skills

Ordinal Numbers

Story Sequence

Character Education:  Tolerance

Note:  The following lesson plan includes several ideas and activities you might use for teaching this book. Modify for your student abilities. Ideas can be used over a period of 1-3 days.

Pre-Reading

• Show the cover of the book. 
• Who do you think will be the main character? How do you know? (The duck is much larger than the rest of the pictures. Guide students, if needed, to figure out it is a duck.)
• What do you know about ducks?
• What sound do they make?
• This book is called Duddle Puck: The Puddle Duck.  Based on the cover, what do you think might happen in this book?  (Allow children to guess.)

Reading

• Read the book out loud.
• To emphasis prediction skills, you could stop after the first animal encounter and allow students to predict what might happen next.  
• Also, identify 1-2 other places ideal for pausing and guessing like when it says, “Instead he wandered to the barn and bellowed out a..."

Post Reading

• Did any of your predictions come true?
• What surprised you in the story?
• Have a visual (toy, picture, puppet) of each animal—duck, hen, goose, pig, horse, farmer, and rooster.  Tip:  Copy pictures on to heavy card stock.  Cut them out and adhere to craft sticks. 
• Who is the main character of the story?  (Duddle Puck—duck)
• Why were the other animals annoyed with him?  (He refused to say quack, quack.)
• You can introduce, teach, or review ordinal numbers by stressing first, second, third, and so forth as you review the order of events.
• What is the first sound that Duddle Puck makes?  (Cluck, Cluck)
• What animal makes that sound?  (Hen)
• Have a student come up to the front and hold the hen picture.
• Continue a review of the book with the previous line of questions for the honk/goose, oink/pig, neigh/horse, hip-hip hooray/farmer, quack/duck, and cock-a-doodle do/rooster.  
• Collect animals and students return to their seats.

Revisiting the Story 

• Re-Read the story. Ask students to look closely at the illustrations for ways that Duddle Puck also acts like the other animals.  As you read, allow the students to participate in saying the animal sounds. 
• On a large piece of paper, write out the order of events in the story emphasizing the ordinal words.  Use a picture of each animal to give a visual prompt as seen here. Example:

                   First, Duddle says, “Cluck, Cluck” like a hen.

                   Second, he says, “Honk, Honk” like a goose.

Reading Comprehension

• What are some of the ways that Duddle Puck acts like other animals?  Go back and show the pictures if the students need prompting. (In the mud with the pig, on top of the hen house like a rooster, hanging out with the hens in the coop)
• Why do you think Duddle Puck acts like animals other than his own kind?  (Answers may vary.)
• How does Duddle Puck trick the other animals?  (They all say “quack,” but they are not ducks.)

Character Education: Tolerance

• What are some ways people act differently?
• Have you ever met someone who did not act like you expected?
• How did it make you feel?
• Do you always act like people expect?
• How should you treat people who act differently that you expect?

Assessment Options

Teacher Created Worksheet.  Find a free printable with farm animals. Cut out the ones that correspond with the story.  Adhere to a blank sheet.  Make one copy for each student. You can use this worksheet for some of the following assessments or one of your own making.

Ordinal Numbers Teaching & Assessment

• Use large individual pictures of each animal with magnets on the back.  Put them in the correct order.  Ask:  Which animal is first?  Third?  And so forth.  Next, mix them up. Allow individual students or the class to help you put them in the correct order on the board, emphasizing first, second, third, and so forth.  You can mix them up and have volunteers try it.
• Using the Teacher Created Worksheet, instruct students to color and cut out the animals. Then, place and paste them in the correct order on a separate sheet with the ordinal words on it.  Write the word on the board to help students find the correct word on their sheet.
• Student volunteers can stand at the front of the room each with one picture in hand.  One or more students can direct volunteers to move to put them in proper order.  Ask questions:  Which student/animal is first?  Fourth?
• For other ordinal number practice ideas, click here and here.

Animal Sounds/Words Teaching & Assessment

• Show a picture of each animal.  Prompt the class to say the animal sound that goes with the corresponding image.
• First, direct students to color and cut out Teacher Created Worksheet animals.  Next, on a separate sheet have the animal sound written out.  Say the sound. Show it on the board.  Students can put the animal picture next to the corresponding sound and paste it.
• Practice animal sounds by singing “Old MacDonald.”  Sing it with the animals from book in the order they appeared. 
• Students can use the animals from the Teacher Created Worksheet to create their own stick puppets with craft sticks.  Make a sound.  Students can put up their stick puppets to show they know which animal makes the sound.  Bonus:  They can practice telling the story in their own words to another student and/or to their parents using these stick puppets. 

Other Activities

• Use the book and activities to prepare for a trip to a local farm.  Discuss other animals the students may find at the farm and the sounds they make. 
• Discuss rhyming words (lots in this book to identify).
• Extend the story by adding one or more scenes with other farm animals.
• Have students reenact the story in groups.  
• Introduce alliteration. Define it. Give examples from the story (Gilly Goose, Henny Hen, Hank the Horse).  Allow students to create their own alliterative animal names and draw/paint/color a picture to go with it.  Alternative: Give students air dry clay to create their animal.  

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