After we found rubber ducks at the dollar store, my toddler was very excited to play with them! We had to stock up on a lot of them. Of course, rubber ducks are a fun friend for the bathtub. But we decided to make a game so we could play and count with duckies anytime. Here are some ducky counting mats for rubber ducky fun outside of the bath!
We started with counting! My daughter loved pretending to count. I say pretending because her way of counting is “one, two, nine, four” and so forth. I only printed out mats to 6 for now, but I made mats up to 10 so I can print them later.
As we practice counting together for each mat, she is already getting better. Matching one item to another is great pre-math skills. Teachers call it one-on-one correspondence. It helps kids learn that the numbers correspond to a physical item,
Because the store had both large and small duckies together, we could also extend this activity into a creative play time. She likes to pretend there are "families" of duckies with a mom, dad, and babies. We can count the number of duckies in the family and match them to the mats.
She is not ready for adding, but I still can introduce the concept as I give
I can see her looking for our ducky counting mats whenever she is in a “ducky” mood (and it’s not bathtime!). It’s so simple, and yet, there is plenty of space of math practice and imagination adventures when you’ve got rubber ducks to enjoy!
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These ducky counting maps are also included
in the Ducks Picture Book Lessons and Activities set!
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