Ducks were a very fun subject for my toddler. We had fun with an art project, became obsessed with a song, and enjoyed a few stories too.
Songs about Ducks
We sang three songs this week about ducks.
The first, Little Baby Ducklings, was a new one I didn't really know but found online. It was short and sweet and easy to remember:
The first, Little Baby Ducklings, was a new one I didn't really know but found online. It was short and sweet and easy to remember:
Little baby ducklings - dash, dash, dash.
Jumped in the duck pond - splash, splash, splash!
When their mother called them - quack, quack, quack!
Litlle baby ducklings swam right back.
The second song was Five Little Ducks. And with this one, I think I've created a bit of a monster. A quacking, singing monster! We have sung "Five Little Ducks" many times before. But now that T is becoming more verbal, he latched onto this song this week like it was the best thing he's ever heard. And now it just won't stop! At the grocery store? Quack quack quack quack! Supposed to be going to sleep? Quack quack quack quack! Playing, eating...all the time! I like Raffi's version - I prefer to sing the song, as he does, with the mother duck going out at the end to retrieve her ducklings. Something always bothered me about the version where the ducklings don't come back when mommy calls, but do when daddy calls for them. So we don't sing that version!
And finally, we sang Six Little Ducks. I like Raffi's version of this song as well.
And finally, we sang Six Little Ducks. I like Raffi's version of this song as well.
"Five Little Ducks" Rocks
Good thing the Five Little Ducks song was such a hit - I already had a project planned to go along with it!
We started with six rocks - one large white one (to be our mommy duck) and five smaller ones (to be our five little ducks).
We started with six rocks - one large white one (to be our mommy duck) and five smaller ones (to be our five little ducks).
In retrospect, lighter colored rocks (or different paint) would have been better as our small ducks. But we did ok with the dark ones - in fact, the dark grey peaking out from underneath sort of gave them the appearance of a mallard duckling. I let T paint the small ducks yellow and he did a great job! I was really impressed that he was so focused on covering them with yellow paint, even though he didn't really know what we were doing.
After the yellow rocks had dried, I used a fine tip brush to paint webbed feet, beaks and eyes onto the rocks to transform them into ducks. I did the same with the larger white rock to make our mommy duck.
Books About Ducks
As always, we incorporated books about ducks into our activities as well. The first was Swim, Duck, Swim! by Susan Lurie and Murray Head. I really appreciated that this book used real photographs of ducks to tell the story. I have been working on vocabulary transfer with T (e.g. for a while he could identify the cow on his blocks, but not in any other form), so I think it's important for him (and any toddler) to see the things whose names he's learning in many formats. Cartoonish representations are cute and appeal to toddler, but I hope incorporating books will real images will help the vocabulary transfer to real life animals. Aside from my ramblings about photographs and vocabulary - the book featured a cute rhyming story.
We also read Pond Babies by Cathryn Falwell. While not specifically about ducks, it did feature ducks. And it introduced mommy and baby pairs, which went nicely with our five little ducks song and rocks. The book was simple and the featured a "call and response" type structure that my toddler really appreciated being involved in. He really loved this book and I could tell he felt very proud to know and be able to name so many of the animals at the pond.
We also read Pond Babies by Cathryn Falwell. While not specifically about ducks, it did feature ducks. And it introduced mommy and baby pairs, which went nicely with our five little ducks song and rocks. The book was simple and the featured a "call and response" type structure that my toddler really appreciated being involved in. He really loved this book and I could tell he felt very proud to know and be able to name so many of the animals at the pond.