5 Little Ducks Activity

I love browsing Pinterest for ideas on things to do with my toddler. I also have a ton of blogs saved on Google Reader that I browse when I'm in the mood that are filled with crafts and DIY things.

Last week I found a pin that led me to Mama Smiles and a printable PDF of a mama duck and her five babies. It reminded me of one of my little boy's favorite song, Five Little Ducks.

Now I'd never heard of this song until a couple years ago when taking him to some baby/toddler groups. If you aren't familiar with it here is Izzy's favorite version from YouTube.

Five little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
"Quack, quack, quack, quack."
But only four little ducks came back.

Four little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
"Quack, quack, quack, quack."
But only three little ducks came back.

Three little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
"Quack, quack, quack, quack."
But only two little ducks came back.

Two little ducks
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
"Quack, quack, quack, quack."
But only one little duck came back.

One little duck
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
"Quack, quack, quack, quack."
But none of the five little ducks came back.

Mother duck she
Went out one day
Over the hill and far away
Mother duck said
"Quack, quack, quack, quack."
And all of the five little ducks came back. 

When I saw the PDF file I had the idea to make little stick puppets to go along with the song. 

What you'll need:

• A printer
• Something to decorate with (crayons, paint, pens, etc)
• Crafting sticks or popsicle sticks
• Card stock or an empty cereal box
• Glue

Start by printing off the PDF from Mama Smiles. Decorate your ducks with your little one. We used orange and yellow markers to color ours and then added googly eyes. We also added some glue to the mother duck's body and added some yellow feathers we had in our crafting bin.

Next, cut out your ducks but don't worry about cutting along the lines just yet because you will want to glue them to some card stock next. I chose to use a cereal box for ours. I glued the ducks down against the colored side so the back would be white. Now you can cut your ducks out around the lines.

Now just add a bit of glue to the end of a popsicle stick and you're finished! Perfect little puppets to use when you sing the song and great for teaching your child about counting and counting backwards.

Izzy loved the ducks so much that he just wants to play with them throughout the day and they've held up surprisingly well. The picture I took of them is from today (as I only had the idea to blog about it today) and as you can see, even after several days of play they are looking good.