Gossie and Friends Ollie - a story about a duck who refuses to hatch

Gossie and Friends Ollie by Olivier Dunrea and published by Walker is a fantastic little book about a duck who refuses to hatch. His friends Gossie and Gertie get bored waiting for him so they come up with a plan to get him to come out. It is fun to read with nice short sentences and detailed pictures.

Activities

Eggs cooked different ways

Similarities and differences discussion

Boiled egg chick

Egg box duck pond

5 Little Ducks Went swimming One Day

Hay/straw picture

Duck in egg card activity

Listening game

Ball rolling game

Hide and Seek

A walk in wellies to see some ducks

Food/Cooking

A good activity involving food to go along with this story is to cook eggs all different ways and your child/children can taste them and talk about the similarities and differences. I always think that eggs are brilliant because they can be cooked in so many different ways and taste and look so different. Some ways that you could try out are scrambled, fried, boiled or even an omelette. You could do this activity over a few days and have eggs a different way for tea or lunch or you could cook them all on the same day and then your child/children can have a try of the different ones one after another. If you want to make something a bit more fun you could hard boil an egg, cut it in half and turn it into a chick by adding a beak shaped piece of carrot for the beak and some raisins for eyes on the yolk. This could be a good thing to use at Easter or if you were having a party.

Indoor

There are some fun activities that can go along with this book. You could make a duck pond out of an empty egg box. If you get your child/children to paint it blue and make some ducks out of card or pompoms that can go swimming where the eggs would have gone. They can also do a nice background on the inside lid of the box. If you wanted to make this activity more educational you could add numbers and sing '5 Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day' and then your child/children could remove the ducks and then put them back when mother duck calls for them. Another fun activity if you have some hay or straw available is to get your child/children to do a nice straw picture and draw Ollie in his egg refusing to come out. You could have a discussion during this activity about why they think Ollie wants to stay in his egg and how Gertie, Gossie and Ollie might be feeling. Your child /children could make an egg using card, cut it in half and then add a split pin to make a hinge so the egg can open and close. Then using a piece of card they can make Ollie and glue him behind so that he can't be seen when the egg is closed but is sitting there when the egg is opened. A final indoor activity is a listening one. If you have a look on the internet there are some fun and free listening games for children where a sound is played and your child/children have to guess what it is. Younger children can just shout them out whereas older children can be encouraged to write down their answers. If you haven't got access to the internet you could just make your own noises and your child/children could take it in turns making a noise to be guessed.

Outdoor

Ollie spends time in his egg rolling round so if you have a ball available you can pretend this is Ollie in his egg. He rolls left and right so you could play a rolling game with your child and teach them left and right at the same time or you could roll the ball and encourage your child/children to run after it. As Ollie is hiding you could play a good old fashioned game of 'Hide and Seek'. Children love playing this game and it encourages turn taking and keeping quiet (which most children struggle to do). This could also be an inside activity if where you live is big enough and has some good hiding places. A final nice and easy activity is to go for a walk in wellies to a pond to see some ducks. It is nice to go out and about locally and children love seeing ducks swimming on a pond.