Herding Ducks

If you yell “Fetch!”, your pet dog might run to grab a stick, but ducks usually don’t listen to us. That’s why we’re loving this video of a duck-herding farmer. He  faces a whole group of ducks (called a “brace” when on the ground), and calls out to them. Suddenly the ducks rush together and  follow him into the barn! We have no idea how he did that. Ducks weigh about 5-6 pounds, so he’s herding at least a couple hundred pounds of duck!

Wee ones: If you’re counting those 8 ducks that run in from the right, what numbers do you say?

Little kids: If there are 100 ducks on the left and those 8 stragglers on the right, how many ducks are there in total?  Bonus: How many cute webbed feet do 100 ducks have?

Big kids: If the farmer herds 40 ducks and 1/2 of them quack back at him, how many ducks quack?  Bonus: How many ducks do you guess are there, without counting? How would you go about guessing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers:

Wee ones: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Little kids: 108 ducks.  Bonus: 200 feet.

Big kids: 20 ducks.  Bonus: Different for everyone…one way is to count out a few, like 10 ducks, and then guess how many clumps of that size fit in the whole group.

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