The Moose is Stuck! The Duck is Stuck!

Show students the cover of the book One Duck Stuck and ask them to predict how many animals they think will take to get a duck out of the mud. Follow a similar pattern to the Engage by having students write their predictions on a sticky note. Students will have more prior knowledge since they watched the moose get unstuck, so their predictions should be more reasonable.

Then have students find their place in line by moving up or down the line. Remind them to look at everyone's prediction and form a line from the smallest prediction number to the largest. Quickly, have the students fold the line and explain their reasoning to the person they are paired with.

Sample student response:

• I chose 1 because if it was the skunk trying to help out, then all of the other animals would leave.

• I think it will take 2 because the duck is much smaller than a moose.

Now read the entire book " One Duck Stuck" to the class. Stop as you read and ask students the following questions:

After reading the story, ask students to think about the animals in the story.

Have students popcorn call out one character at a time that appear in the story. As they do this, place a picture cutout of each animal in a pocket chart. (See attached character set.) Avoid placing the animals in the order they were mentioned in the story.

Next, give each pair of students a packet of the characters that were in the story. Students will place the animals on their desks in the sequence the animals come to help the duck. As a class, agree on the correct order and numbers for the specific animals.

Students may use the book to verify order and number. Have students come to the pocket chart and rearrange the order and the number of the animals in the pocket chart to match what the class agreed upon.

Say to students the following:

"Now that you know the order and the number of animals, what else do you notice when looking at the chart?"

"Are there any patterns?"

"What happens to the number of the animals as the story goes on?"

Give students time to study and think about the chart and what they see before calling on students to respond.

Students now are ready to explore, figure out, and show How many animals helped to get the duck out.

Students will work with a partner to create a poster that shows by drawing, writing equations/number sentences, and writing a statement explaining the number of animals it took to help the duck out of the mud. They need to explain what they are thinking and show the strategy they used to find their answer. You will need to have counters, paper, crayons, markers, etc. available for students to use.