How do you know it is a duck? – Virtual Kids Book Club – April – David Shannon-Duck on a Bike

I struggled with the virtual book club’s author this month. David Shannon wasn’t an author I knew.  When I saw it in the upcoming year list I kept a look out for his books.  There are none in the library here.  I flicked through one book in a charity shop and looked at books being read online, but I couldn’t find one I liked or that was suitable for Luath.  Last week I finally found “Duck on a bike”.  Which is a fun story about a duck cycling, all the other farm animals have negative comments about this, but they finally succumb when a group of children leave their bikes unattended.  The book reminds me of the Jez Alborough duck books.  Luath found it funny.

In this book and many other books ducks are white, different to the ones we see by our house (Mallard and Eider)

and different to the toy yellow ducks

and the multicoloured bath ducks, but we know they are all ducks.

How do we know it is a duck?
We looked for ducks while we were outdoors, looked at ducks in books and our duck toys. We talked about what makes us know they are all ducks – the webbed feet, waddle, bill and a quack (not true for all ducks, the eiders make quite a distinctive sound and it is not a quack).  We have started going to a music and movement class and at the moment we have been hatching out of eggs and becoming ducks. So I decided to give Luath some webbed feet and a bill to expand on this.

These were made quick and with thin cardboard, the feet would be better with stiffer cardboard. I cut two duck feet shaped from cardboard packaging and a bill from an egg box.
 
I made five holes in each foot.
 
Using a shoelace I attached the foot to Luath’s gym shoe.

I attached a shoelace to the bill.  Elastic would be better.

She put on her duck feet and bill.  She decided that the bill made a great necklace.  We did our duck dance and lots of waddling.  NB As the laces were a choking hazard Luath was supervised while she had them.
 
Two resources about what makes a duck a duck:
 What is a duck? and characteristics of a duck to teach a young child
(Luath is 27 months)