📖🐾
The Ugly Duckling
PawSteps · Symbol-Supported Story · Book 6 · The all-animal feelings story!
🥚 🐥 🦆 🦢
✔ The classic animal tale in short, gentle sentences
✔ Feeling words in purple cells — sad, lonely, amazed, happy
✔ A built-in SEL lesson: feeling different, kindness, and growing into yourself
✔ Egg → duckling → swan life-cycle learning
✔ Vocabulary board · feelings-match comprehension · mirror activity + retell planner
© PawSteps · For personal & classroom use — not for resale or sharing.
🍎PawSteps · For Grown-Ups
Reading This Book
💡 Why this story?
The Ugly Duckling is the feelings story: being left out, feeling different, and discovering you were never wrong — just still growing. For children who feel like the odd one out (many SEND children do), this story quietly says: you belong, and your flock is coming.
💜 The purple feeling cells
Every feeling word is highlighted purple. Pause on each one: make the face together, find it on a feelings chart, ask "have YOU ever felt like this?" The comprehension page matches story moments to feelings — feel free to do it aloud instead of on paper.
💚 The message to land
The duckling never changed to fit in — he grew into exactly who he always was. After reading, tell your child one thing that makes THEM wonderfully different. Say it like it's a superpower. It is.
🦆Mummy duck
had
5️⃣five
🥚eggs.
💥Crack!
💥Crack!
Out came
4️⃣four
🐥little ducklings…
…and
1️⃣one
💪BIG
🩶grey
🐥duckling.
🦆 🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚 🐥🐥🐥🐥 🩶
1
The
🦆other ducks
😆laughed.
"You look
🤪funny!"
The
🩶grey duckling
felt
😢sad.
He
🏊swam
➡️away.
🦆🦆 😆 🩶 😢 🌊
2
In
🍂autumn
he
was
🥶cold
and
🙁lonely.
In
❄️winter
the
🏞️pond
🧊froze.
A
💚kind
👨🌾farmer
🤲helped
him.
🍂 ❄️ 🧊 👨🌾 💚
3
In
🌸spring
he
👀saw
✨beautiful
⚪white
🦢birds
on the
🌊water.
🦢Swans!
He felt
😮amazed.
🌸 🦢 🦢 🦢 ✨
4
He
👀looked
in the
🌊water.
He saw…
a
✨beautiful
⚪white
🦢swan.
It was
👉HIM!
He had
🌱grown!
🦢 🌊 👀 😮 ✨
5
The
🦢swans
💬said:
"Come
🤝with us!"
He was
❌never
🙁lonely
🔁again.
He felt
😊happy
and
🥰proud.
🔚The end.
🦢 🦢 🦢 🦢 💚 ☀️
6
🃏PawSteps · Story Tools
Story Vocabulary Board
✂️ Introduce these BEFORE reading. The purple cards are feelings — make each face in a mirror together!
🦆mummy duck
🥚egg
🐥duckling
🦢swan
🏊swim
🌱grow
❄️winter
🌸spring
😢sad
🙁lonely
😮amazed
😊happy
🧠PawSteps · After the Story
Feelings Match & Story Order
💜 Draw a line: how did the duckling feel at each moment?
The ducks laughed at him 😊 happy & proud
Winter, all alone 😢 sad
He saw a swan in the water — it was him! 🙁 lonely
Swimming with his new flock 😮 amazed
🔢 How a swan grows — write 1, 2, 3, 4.
💬 Talk about it: the ducks said he looked "funny" — was that kind? What could ONE duck have said instead that would have changed the whole story?
🪞PawSteps · After the Story
My Swan Mirror & Retell!
🪞 The duckling looked in the water and saw someone wonderful. Your turn! Draw yourself in the mirror — and around the edge, write (or ask a grown-up to write) things that make you WONDERFULLY you.
💚 Kindness promise: the grey duckling just needed ONE kind friend. Who could you be a kind friend to this week?
🗣️ Retell the story — draw or write one thing in each box.