At a Glance
This build a duckling craft is a simple cut and paste activity for preschool and kindergarten children. Little learners cut out the pieces and stick them together to make their very own cute little duckling, practicing scissor control, fine motor coordination, and problem solving along the way. Available in color and black and white versions.
Who loves feeding the ducklings at the park? Me! If your little ones do too, then this simple build a duckling craft will be great!
They’ll need to snip out the pieces and stick them together to make their own cheerful little duckling, sneaking in plenty of scissor practice and fine motor work as they go!
And here’s a fun little fact to share while they’re gluing away: mallard ducklings can run, swim, and forage for food on their own just over a day after hatching!
There’s a full-color version for little ones who want to dive straight in and a black and white version if they’d rather do the decorating themselves. Either way, this one’s a fun little addition to a spring, bird, pond, or farm theme – or just a sweet cut and paste craft to have ready to go.
If you’re a teacher, this simple craft could also make an brilliant bird themed activity for the classroom!
Other cut and paste crafts you may want to check out:
Or you can browse all the other printable cut and paste crafts here.
What Skills Can Your Children Learn And Practice?
When making this duckling, your children will have the chance to practice and develop some skills such as:
- Cutting Skills – if you feel they’re ready, you can let them have a go at cutting out the pieces all by themselves – they’ll need to be careful and have good scissor control if they want to cut out the pieces neatly
- Fine Motor Skills – when they’re sticking and picking up and moving the parts and placing them where they need to go
- Pencil Control – if you print off the black and white version they can practice their pencil control and develop hand strength through coloring.
This simple craft will also give them a chance to practice their concentration and perseverance skills as they may find it tricky to place the pieces exactly where they want them to go.
How To Prepare This Simple Duckling Craft
First you’re going to want to download the duckling templates by clicking on the download button at the bottom of the page – I’ve made a color and a black and white version.
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Other materials you’ll need:
- Safety scissors
- Card stock or Craft paper
- Some good glue
- Some coloring pencils or pens or other artsy materials
Once you’ve downloaded the templates, you’ll need to print them off onto paper or card.
Then, you can cut them out. Or if you’d like your children to get some cutting practice, you can let them have a go.
Then you can stick all the pieces together to make the little duck.
It can be really nice to let your kids have a bit of free rein here and see if they can work it out – kind of like a puzzle.
If they’re struggling, the order I’d do it in is:
- Stick the wings to the the body
- Stick the eyes on
- Stick the beak on
- Stick the legs on (or, if these are a bit tricky for those little hands to cut out, stick it to a plain piece of paper and draw the legs on)
(I expect you could have worked that out but I do like to be thorough…)
The finished one should look something like this:
If you want to, you could always laminate the pieces before putting them together and use them as a puzzle. That way, the different parts would be kept nice and they can use them again and again.
After that you’re all done!
Let your kids practice their cutting and sticking skills in a simple and fun way!
But Wait… There’s Also A Black And White Duckling Template!
I’ve also made a black and white version which would be an awesome way for your little ones to practice their coloring skills and personalize their duckling in their own way!
So why not crack out the pens, crayons, paints or collage (or all of them if you’re feeling adventurous) and let your kids get creative!
Some Other Ways You Could Use This Duckling Activity
This little duckling has more mileage in it than you’d think – here are some fun ways to stretch the learning once the gluing is done:
Set Up a Little Pond Scene:
Once the duckling is built, give it somewhere to live! Grab a sheet of blue paper (or a paper plate painted blue) for the pond, add some green tissue-paper reeds, and plonk your duckling on top.
Laminate and Reuse as a Puzzle:
If you’ve got a laminator, this craft doubles beautifully as a reusable puzzle. Laminate the pieces and your little ones can build and rebuild their duckling again and again. Great for fine motor practice and a brilliant quiet-time activity for early finishers. And you could always mix it with a few of the other crafts – who knows what crazy animals they’ll come up with!
Turn It Into a Duckling Puppet:
Stick the finished duckling onto a craft stick or popsicle stick to make an instant puppet. If there’s a few of you, you could also sing Five Little Ducks together and act it out – each child can take a turn being the duckling that goes away over the hills and far away.
“D is for Duckling”:
Use the craft as a hook for a quick phonics game. Can your little ones think of other things that start with the D sound? Dinosaur, dog, dolphin, etc… jot them down on a sheet and see how many they can find around the room.
Color-Mixing Fun:
If you’ve gone for the black and white version, pull up a few pictures of real ducklings and challenge your little ones to mix yellows, oranges and browns to get that soft, fluffy look. A lovely intro to color theory.
However you use it, I hope your little learners have a great time building their ducklings!
I’d love to hear about what they create!
And you can check out more awesome animal activities here!
Enjoy and let’s nurtured those neurons!
