It's All Ducky

I wanted to share a couple of games I came up with to keep Miss M entertained and practicing math and language skills.

We have a lot of these little rubber ducks, thanks to my friend Jocelyn who threw me a bath themed baby shower a couple years ago.  You can find them in a variety of themes and get a dozen for just a couple dollars on Oriental Trading Company.

First, we scoured all our toy bins looking for them, as they have been scattered across rooms and floors over time.  We counted how many we had (seven) and then she added the big pink "mama" duck so we had eight all together.  I had a piece of scrapbook paper that looks like water so I cut them a little pond and we set it up in the play area near our Little People barn (I love Little People toys) because she insisted that's where they lived.

Game One is basically using them as manipulatives in the song "Five Little Ducks" In case you don't know it, it goes:
"Five little ducks went out to play, over the hills and far  away.  Mother Duck said quack, quack, quack and four little ducks came waddling back" and so forth until Mama Duck says quack, quack, quack in a very authoritarian tone and they all come home again.  (In most versions, it ends with Papa Duck bringing them all back but I think they should listen to their Mama in the end and not leave it to Papa).  The pink duck sat in for Mama and Miss M counted five little ducks, leaving our extras on the pond.  Every time one less duck came home, she moved it from the line and back on the pond.  I sang the song a few times until she could do it herself.

Game Two I call Duck Hunt.  I found this little pair of binoculars that we had gotten as a freebie somewhere (but you could make some from toilet paper rolls or rolled paper).  I hid the ducks around the area and then she had to use the binoculars to find them.  She kept count of how many she had so I helped her figure out how many more she still needed to find.  The second time around I helped direct her to ducks using prepositions ("I see a duck on the shelf.  I see one under your bed.  I see one behind Henry Bear.")

Both games were pretty successful (in fact she's playing the first one on her own right now) and very easy.