Make Way for Ducklings and Magnets

Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey is one of my all time favorite books for many reasons.  The illustrations are nostalgic and sweet and they show Boston landmarks like the Public Garden and the Charles River the way they looked almost 75 years ago!   

As a child I loved going to visit the Public Garden and seeing the bronze statues dedicated to the book - they made the story feel so alive.  To make the story come alive at home, try making these duckling magnets.  Can you imagine making a cool drawing of the Boston Public Garden and taping it to your fridge so that your magnet ducks can have their own adventures?

Materials:

• 9 different colored pieces of felt
• 2 sheets of yellow paper
• 1 sheet of orange paper
• 9 magnets
• 9 bottle caps

Tools:

• Scissors
• Glue gun

Steps:

1. Cut out the mother duck and the duckling templates (you can print them outhere andhere). Next trace 8 bodies and 8 heads on the yellow paper from the duckling template. Then you should trace 1 head and 1 body from the mom duck template, giving you 9 heads and 9 bodies in total!  
2. On the orange paper trace 8 beaks from the duckling template and then 1 beak from the mom template, again giving you a total of 9 beaks.  Also, trace 1 wing and 1 tuft of hair on the 8 different colored pieces of felt for each duck, and then 1 wing and 1 tuft of hair on the (yellow) felt for the mom duck. 
3. Cut out all of the bodies, heads, beaks, hair, and wings and line them up with each other so you know which to glue to which! You can also flip each piece over so that where you might have gotten any pen would now be on the back side of the duck. Also, I recommend labeling each piece of the mom duck just so you don’t mix the pieces up with the duckling pieces. 
4. Glue each magnet to the inside of the bottle cap. As I found out the hard way, I would not recommend using really strong magnets because they will not come apart easily, and they all stick together like crazy! 
5. Glue the head to the body, the beak to the head, the tuft of hair to the head, the wing to the body, and then go ahead and draw on some eyes! 
6. Glue the magnets onto the back of the body of the ducks and then you’re all done! They're ready to cross Beacon Street, march into the Public Garden and swim in the pond!