Little Duck’s Walk

Story by Jane Buxton

Illustrations by Val Biro

The Story Introducing the Text

• Children say what sort of book they think this will be and the sort  
Little Duck goes for of language they expect to find, from the information on the cover and title
a walk all by herself page.
and has a lovely • Read the story to the children. Children confirm or reject their ideas about genre,
time. She doesn’t style and language.
notice all the animals • Reread, pausing for children to supply prepositional phrases. (past the kennel,
that try to catch her. over the grass)
• Children read for themselves. They talk about the ways they worked out words
and sentences.
• Talk to children about the problems for Little Duck being away from home.
What did the dog and cat want to do to Little Duck?
What about the eel on page 5 and the bird on pages 6–7?

Returning to the Text

Text work
Children reread. They picture each event in their minds as they read. Children
close the book, write and draw the sequence of events on a timeline. They look
through the book to check their ideas. Children use their timelines to retell the
story to a friend.

Ask questions that involve children in using page numbers.

Turn to pages 2 and 3. What did Little Duck do when she got to
the gate? Why? What happened at the kennel, the water?
Focus on the illustrations.
How do illustrations help us understand the text?
Children ask their own question using illustrations for ideas.
How did Little Duck feel when she was looking in the water on
page 4? How did the cat and the dog feel?
Children develop story maps of the story. They refer to the book to check where
Little Duck went.
Sentence work
Read sentences featuring prepositional phrases.
She went under along/through/past/over/around/in…
Children mime to show meaning. They transform the sentences by using other
prepositions (over, past, through, by, out). Enlarge the new sentences and
display them with children’s illustrations.
10 © Wendy Pye Publishing Ltd 2011
What is the main idea of the story? Children tell in their own words. They draw Working with
pictures and write sentences to match.
Word work
the words
Look at the words in the title. Children say what they notice. Teach children the prepositional
purpose of the apostrophe used to show possession. adverbs
Whose walk is it? Little Duck’s.
Children find more examples in other texts, read them aloud and say why the Content words
apostrophe has been used.
Children draw themselves with a favourite possession and write captions featuring
duck
the apostrophe alongside. walk
Enlarge text on charts with words omitted (verbs, noun, prepositions).   gate
What will the next word be? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? path
Children read and replace words. lovely
Focus on the word lovely. kennel
What did the author describe as lovely? What do you think it means?   grass
What would you describe as lovely? water
Children help make a book about lovely things.
swim
swimmer
Guided Writing flowers
• Rewrite the story together. Children choose new characters, events and bridge
prepositions and write new titles.
home
• Create a Readers’ Theatre presentation. Write up the script on a large chart for
children to read.
Mum

Running words
107

Extension Activities
• Create a timeline or mind map display with pictures, prepositional phrases and
diagrammatic indicators.
• Children make personal word banks in two-page books.

Using the Online Activities

Lettergetter – Lettergetter eats labels from a picture. Children use the
onscreen keyboard to replace the missing letters.

Word Slurper – Children choose the phrase shown in the animation. Where
is Little Duck going? – under the gate or along the path

Mighty Writer – Children replace a punctuation mark and click on a

sentence they hear from a choice of two. They write their own story using
words from the text that triggers an animation.

© Wendy Pye Publishing Ltd 2011 11