Make these printable five little ducks puppets and have fun singing all the ducky songs you know!
They’re also great for stories, play dough and imaginative play and so much more!
“Five little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mama duck said ‘Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!’
But only four little ducks came back!”
This has always been one of my favourite counting songs to sing with preschoolers. The kids love that the mischievous little ducks hide from their Mama and they love quacking loudly like Mama duck when she is looking for her babies.
My kids loved these little ducks almost as much as the Five Green Frogs Printable puppets we made.
We set up our own ‘hills’ with a green blanket so the ducklings could hide, and used some play dough to make Mummy Duck stand up all alone, quacking for her babies to come back.
My sensitive middle child was always so sad for the mama duck. “She’ll be crying won’t she mum? You’d cry if I went away and didn’t come back, wouldn’t you mum?”
So we’d always have a little chat about how I would most definitely be very sad if my beautiful boy (or any of my kids) went over a hill and didn’t come back and how it is important to answer me if I call out “Where are you?” so that I know you are safe. And only after all of that could we finally get to the singing and puppet show!
Puppets are such a fun way to enjoy music and storytelling with your kids, and these free printable five little ducks puppets are perfect for all the duck songs and stories you know and love!
How to Make the Duck Puppets
I use a regular inkjet printer to print all my puppets. We printed our little ducks onto matte photo paper, but you could also use light cardstock, or regular printer paper and laminate the puppets after you have cut them out.
We use tape or a glue dot to attach a craft stick to the back of each puppet to turn them into puppets. You can also use straws, or bamboo skewers, or leave them without sticks so they can be used in lots of different ways.
These five little ducks puppets are perfect for all the duck songs and stories you know. They are also great fun added to playdough or for imaginative play, or pop a velcro dot on the back of them and they are perfect for a felt board too.
The five little ducks puppet set includes these five adorable little ducklings, plus a Mama duck, as well as a printable page with the words to the Five Little Ducks song.
This printable is an A4 sized pdf file, you will need a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat to open it. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.
Here’s another duck some that we like. Tape a feather to one of your puppets and you’re good to go!
Six little ducks that I once knew,
Fat ones, fair ones, skinny ones too.
But the one little duck with the feather on his back,
He led the others with a Quack Quack Quack!
Quack Quack Quack!
Quack Quack Quack!
He led the others with a Quack Quack Quack!
Down to the river they would go,
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble too and fro.
But the one little duck with the feather on his back,
He led the others with a Quack Quack Quack!
Quack Quack Quack!
Quack Quack Quack!
He led the others with a Quack Quack Quack!
Home from the river they would come,
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, ho hum hum
But the one little duck with the feather on his back,
He led the others with a Quack Quack Quack!
Quack Quack Quack!
Quack Quack Quack!
He led the others with a Quack Quack Quack!
Do you know any other duck songs?
If you like these, then you’ll love our other free printable puppets.
Oh they are too cute :)
5 little ducks are one of our fun sing in the mirror and watch our facial expression songs :D
Oh I like the 6 duck version!!
What a lovely activity! Isn’t it amazing that when you start a conversation with a little one (eg a counting song about ducks) that it ends up somewhere completely unexpected (eg. about how you would feel if he went away)?! I love to see how their minds connect between different concepts. Thanks for sharing this!
This is super cute Kate. I am going to print this out to do with Libby tomorrow. She will love it and so will I. N x
How beautiful! and I have sung 5 little ducks to my boys many times, just using my fingers, this adds quite a bit more fun to the game. Thank you!
Love.
Gorgeous, my little boy will love this, it’s one of his favourite songs. Although personally I’m more partial to the six little ducks song. Thanks for putting up fantastic printables like this! Love em.
Thanks so much for this! The frog printable has been a huge hit with my little girl (20 months), she runs to grab them if a frog song comes on the CD player so they can “jump, jump, jump”. She adores ducks so I can’t wait to print these out for her.
Thanks so much. Had a play date this afternoon so we had 2 four year olds and 2 two year olds. All loved the activity. While the other mummy and I were busy cutting out ducks, the four year olds used excellent maths skills sorting and counting to make sure everyone had the right number of ducks. The 2 year olds enjoyed choosing the colours for their popsticks and all enjoyed the puppet show provided by the four year olds when they were finished. We have been singing 5 little ducks ever since!
We use a different verse for the last one in five little ducks went swimming.
It goes
Mummy duck began to cry
But daddy duck said dry your eyes
Look over there and you will see
Five little ducks coming home for their tea
Oh I love that alternate ending! Thanks so much for sharing!
Oh I love these! I will make them when the colour printer is set up my eldest will love them, she adores this song. If I make them can I do a post on my blog with a link to you? I would love to share them with my readers and your great blog too :)
Hi,
Thankyou for the puppet printables. I work in the babies room at a childcare centre and my group loved them. Are you planning on doing any other rhymes, as I would love to make up a collection and I’m not as creative.
Kelly
Thanks so much, just lovely xo
Seriously, could those ducks be any cuter! When we are doing finger plays or songs at preschool, the kids are soooo much more engaged when there are props involved :)
when we do 5 little ducks, we add at the end:
But when the daddy duck says ‘quack, quack, quack’ (at which point everyone quacks as loud as they can)
5 little ducks come waddling back!
Thank you for the adorable printable. My little boys will love these ducks.
thank you very much for the printables!!!!!
Love these! We did them this week along with a video of 5 little ducks went swimming one day :)
Thanks for sharing this sweet lesson!