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Classroom Activities
To Help You Connect Trumpet Books to Your Curriculum

Quack and Count Classroom Activities
	Quack and Count by Keith Baker Follow the excitement of a day's adventure as a family of lively ducklings slip, slide, leap, and dive — grouping themselves in all the different combinations that add up to seven. Addition has never been so much fun!

Many Ways to Make 7
(or 8, 9, 10 or more!)
Introduce children to a variety of activities that encourage number concept development.

After reading the story to the children invite 7 children to be ducks. Explain to the children that you will reread the story and they will form all the different groups that make up the number 7. Encourage the children to count and quack as they make their duck groupings.
Provide children with seven cutout duck shapes. Ask them to use their ducks to make the different number groupings as you reread the story.
Give the children a sheet of paper and glue. Ask the children to choose a number grouping and glue their ducks onto the sheet of paper. Assist them in writing the addition sentence that describes their grouping.

More Subtraction Activities!

Invite all of the children to stand up. Ask the children count off the number of children in your class. Now reduce the number of children by one. Ask the children, "If we had 20 children and one child went away how many children are left?" Have the children count aloud as you continue to reduce the group by one child.
Provide the children with the 20 counters. Write a numbers less than 20 on the chalkboard or chart paper. Ask the children to use their counters to make that number. How many counters did they remove from the group of 20?

Kindergarten Card Game
Divide the children into small groups. Give each group counters and a pack of playing cards, removing the "royal cards". Tell the children to use the aces to represent the number one. Ask the children to divide the cards among the group. Each child will place one card on the table. Children will use their counters to count out the number on their card. Then they will find out how many counters they have in all. Ask them to continue the game until they have used all of their cards.

Sing this fun song and fingerplay to teach subtraction concepts:

Seven Little Ducks Went Out to Play Seven little ducks went out to play (children hold up seven fingers)

Over the hills and far away
Mother duck said "quack, quack, quack, quack" (move hands in quacking motion)
And six little ducks came running back. (hold up six fingers)

Six little ducks went out to play (children hold up six fingers)
Over the hills and far away
Mother duck said, "quack, quack, quack, quack"
And five little ducks came running back.

Continue reducing the number of ducks until "no little ducks came running back".

Last verse:
Sad mother duck went out to play
Over the hills and far away.
Mother duck said, "quack, quack, quack, quack"
And all of her little ducks came back.
(hold up seven fingers)

Tip: Invite seven children to act out the song. Increase the numbers and continue singing and acting out variations of the song.