‘Make Way For Ducklings’ Book

Brings Guest Speaker To Sandy Hook

By Tanjua Damon

Third grade students in John Sicbaldi’s class at Sandy Hook School had a guest speaker last week to discuss the life cycle of a duck in order to add to their author study of Robert McCloskey, who wrote Make Way for Ducklings, which the class is reading.

Craig Ferris from Ducks Unlimited came to Mr Sicbaldi’s class last week to discuss whether the author was accurate in how the lifecycle of a duck really is and the habitats of ducks. Mr Ferris brought decoy female and male mallard ducks like the ones Mr McCloskey talks about in his book. The female is dull in color, while the male is quite colorful.

“We want to see how Mr McCloskey used his knowledge of ducks in his writing,” Mr Sicbaldi said. Mr McCloskey won the Caldecott Medal Award for his pen and ink illustrations in the book.

Before Mr Ferris talked with the students about waterfowl, the students read the book Make Way for Ducklings, seeing how the author used mallards in the story and how he discussed their way of life.

Mr Ferris told the third graders that the Mallard are a type of waterfowl that live and nest near water. They are migratory birds who move north and south for warm weather.

Mallards do not mate for life. The female picks a new mate every year. The male Mallard, drake, is colorful because the female selects her mate, according to Mr Ferris. The male will do things like head bobs and swim in circles to try to catch the attention of the hen.

The female duck will find a place to nest where there is maximum protection from predators, Mr Ferris said. The female produces an egg a day. They usually lay eight eggs. The hen incubates her eggs for approximately three weeks.

“All these eggs hatch on the same day. The eggs don’t start developing until they sit on them and keep them warm,” Mr Ferris said. “They also start to hatch in a very short period of time. They synchronize their hatching.”

Mr McCloskey’s book is about a mother Mallard who is trying to get her hatched babies to a safe place where there is water. She takes them through traffic and gets help from the police. The mother Mallard is trying to meet up with the father Mallard.

Although much of Mr McCloskey’s book is on track with the life cycle of the Mallard, Mr Ferris told the students that the male duck leaves the mother duck and they most likely will never mate with each other again.

Mr McCloskey got the idea for Make Way for Ducklings while going to art school in Boston. He remembered seeing Mallard ducks in the Boston Public Garden. In order to make his children’s book as real as possible he brought four ducks home to watch them and draw them to write the award-winning book.