Have You Seen My Duckling?

Our book of the week is Have You Seen My Duckling? by Nancy Tafuri. We've enjoyed reading the book along with several other "duck" books and discussing the stories. We've done several simple things for story stretchers from this book. We learned the Spanish word for duck and the sign for duck, and we sang "5 Little Ducks Went out to Play." O matched miniature plastic insects to the insects in the book as we read the book.
We went outside to see the ducks. We didn't see any ducks, but O had fun trying to catch minnows. We also played "Have you seen my duckling?" O was the duckling, and I pretended like I couldn't see her (don't worry mom. She was NEVER out of my sight!), and I asked everything around me "Have you seen my duckling"? This game was a big hit, and we've played it several times since then. O knows, of course, that she is never to be out of our sight while playing in or near the water. We have a very strict rule that we never play hide and seek outside, and she is always amazed when she sees children in books playing hide and seek outside since that is the ultimate in naughty/dangerous behavior :)


 
We took bread out to feed the ducks, but ended up feeding the minnows instead. The minnows were excited. We also practiced being very still. If you stay very still in the water, the minnows will nibble your toes!

O's favorite story stretcher was this pond/lake habitat that we made using beach sand and water. I gave her several ducks, plastic insects, and people to play with, and she was engrossed in this activity for quite a while.