Duck pond activity

I am fortunate.  I am surrounded by talented colleagues at my college.  Case in point, Professor KP.  I've been begging her - literally - to guest post on Upcycled Education as she has been an avid reader of our sweet blog since the inception.  Finally, eight months later, my begging has paid off.

Please welcome, a lovely, bright and creative colleague/educator, Prof. KP....

Hi Jen, loving Upcycled Education, as always. I wanted to share a spin off on one of your ideas.

Don’t we as teachers love to borrow ideas and make them our own? Anyway, having my own little helper at home, we tried your Mod Podge activity. We made the wooden cutouts with the reflection questions on back and I brought them to class one day. When they were spread out on the desk and students were looking them over and picking one, it suddenly reminded me of the duck pond game at carnivals. You remember that game where the kids pick a duck floating in the water and get a prize according to what is marked on the bottom? So I went home and Goggled images of the “Duck Pond Game," printed those out, put the questions on the back, laminated and cut them out. They turned out like the ones pictured above.

I took them to class and they were a big hit. One of my students suggested that wouldn’t it be fun to use the actual plastic ducks and float them in the water (we happen to have a sink in that classroom which would make this easy).  A quick search on Amazon shows them available for $0.59 apiece.

I do think having the plastic ducks would be fun, though I haven’t quite figured how to get waterproof questions on the bottom (probably a Sharpie marker).  While it is not quite my style, that just may float someone else’s boat (like the pun?). Would love to hear how that goes if a fellow teacher out there wants to give it a try. Happy educating ~KP

PS. Just like in the game, one of the ducks is a “winner”.  It is a “free pass” that says you do not need to answer a question today, just sit back and enjoy the responses of your classmates. 

Thanks so much, Prof. KP.  This does float my boat.  Ha!

Jen