One Duck Stuck: Story Recall with Manipulatives

Recalling events from a story is an important skill for children to learn.  It helps them build the cognitive skills they need to sequence events, tell their own stories, and later become great writers.  There are several ways you can have children recall events: question and answer games, writing/drawing, acting out stories, and using manipulatives. This post gives an example of the latter with One Stuck Duck as the focus book.

When working on recalling a story with young children, keep in mind how many times they have experienced the story.  Children are more likely to remember the events of a story if they have opportunities to interact with the characters and/or plot through dramatic play. If you are workingwith a complex story, introduce the parts little by little. 

Story Recall with Manipulatives: One Duck Stuck

Grade, Age Range or Specialized Learner: Multi-age, Preschool/Pre-K, 3-5 year old
Target Learning Skill: Story Recall

Kindergarten Common Core Standard
Literature: Key Ideas and Details
K.RL.2: With prompting and support, retell familiar stories including key details.

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root

One Stuck Duck is a story where the same event recurs with different characters.  To introduce story recall for this book, we gave the children all of the materials at once.  We used a piece of construction paper for the muck and placed the corresponding animals in the correct amounts around the muck.  We also placed a copy of the book in the center for children to reference as needed.  If you are unable to locate all of the animals from the story, you can recreate the same activity with printed images on the table top or felt board.

Story Recall with a Felt or Magnet Board from KidsSoup.com

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root

One Duck Stuck Felt Story Pieces  (KidsSoup members only)

Related Story-Themed Preschool and Kindergarten Centers 

While children are waiting for a turn to retell the story with manipulatives, they can visit one of these other story-themed centers.

Math – Provide 6-sided dice, small animal counters, and construction paper muck. The children roll 1 or 2 dice, count the number of dots showing altogether, and place the corresponding number of animals in the "muck."

One Duck Stuck Story Activities and Crafts

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root

Art – Paint with feathers.

Submitted by KidsSoup member Beth Steward.

View more preschool and kindergarten ducks activities and crafts

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root

KidsSoup Resource Library

Preschool Activities: 

Media Root