Does your child love the nursery rhyme “The 5 Little Ducks?” Are you looking for a new way to engage your preschooler in a maths activity? Then combine the two and make this fun felt activity which can be used again and again!
We are really enjoying being part of the Rhyme Time blog hop, celebrating our favourite nursery rhymes with some of our blogging buddies. We have already shared ideas for Old Macdonald, I’m a Little Tea Pot and Mary, Mary Quite Contrary. Today it is the turn of my daughter’s current nursery rhyme favourite 5 Little Ducks.
“5 Little Ducks went swimming one day,
Over the hills are far away,
Mummy duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack”
And only 4 little ducks came back”.
How to make a 5 Little Ducks Felt Play Mat
Felt is such an easy and affordable fabric is work with in kid’s activities. We used it last summer to have fun building ice-cream pictures. To add onto a sheet of light blue felt I cut out:
- A wiggly strip of dark blue for the duck pond
- A zig zag strip of hills from green felt
- A yellow circle for the sun
- Some clouds from white felt
- 1 yellow mummy, and 5 baby yellow ducks with orange beaks and a googly eye each.
Top Tip – trace over a picture of a duck and then cut this out and pin it to your piece of felt before cutting it out.
Sing-a-long Time
Our first activity was just to have a good old sing song using the play mat to act out the rhyme. Bella really enjoyed adding each of the ducks onto their pond and then taking them off again.
Making number sets
Then using our felt numbers from our earlier Hickory Dickory Dock activity, we began to work on my toddlers number recognition skills. With the help of her big brother Freddie, they worked together making small sets of ducks (up to 5) and then matching up the correct number to the set.
Freddie then worked on showing Bella the correct way to order the 5 numbers.
Simple Sums
We then used the ducks and numbers, along with a plus and equals sign that I had cut out from white felt, to work on Freddie’s (aged 5) maths homework. Making maths fun is a great way to engage and encourage young kids to learn at home and reinforce what they have been doing in school.
Now it’s time to see what other 5 Little Ducks activities are being shared today:
Messy Little Monster have been busy with an egg carton in their craft.
Teach Me Mommy have made adorable finger puppets.
Adventures of Adam have utilised a fun poodle noodle in their activity!
This is so sweet! 5 Little Ducks is one of our favorite songs.