Rubber Duck Day

This past week we've been celebrating Rubber Ducky Day.  When I was looking at the calendar of all the different holidays, this one stuck out to me because I liked the idea of having a few that weren't completely about food and Cooper has always really loved ducks.  He has now broadened his scope and has an appreciation for all animals, but around his first birthday he loved ducks.  So I thought it would be fun to celebrate Rubber Duck Day.  Rubber Duck Day was on January 13-- I read that the Sesame Street Calendar once had January 13 listed as Rubber Ducky's birthday, so that's how the holiday came to be about.

We kicked it off with a bath with all of our rubber ducks.  Cooper has a lot of rubber ducks and usually gets one or two at bathtime, but we had a rubber duck party and an extended bath for Rubber Duck Day.

I also put together a playlist of duck songs to listen to just for fun.  I love Amazon Music and all of the free songs we get there!

I also extended the duck fun through the week.  This year I'm doing a few more structured activities throughout the day with Cooper, just to add a little learning in and to save my sanity some with some extra things to pull out and a little fun for me to plan out some specific activities.  So far we're doing a different "theme" each week and we have a playlist to go along with it, some activities, and a lesson about God related to it.  Last week was snow and this week was ducks!  We'll see how long we keep it up :)  But here's some of our "duck" activities:

We focused on the color yellow this week, so I had a game for him to sort yellow and green craft sticks into cups.  I had this out when he got up Monday morning so he could work on it during breakfast.  I showed him a few times and then he actually got the idea right away and sorted the rest of the sticks!  And he came back and wanted to do it again after lunch on Monday.

Tuesday we used these printouts to sing along to 5 Little ducks.  We had them run away one at a time and then counted them after each verse.  Cooper is starting to do a little counting along with me, although he always skips the number 2.  Usually if you ask "how many are there?" He says "one" really drawn out like he's going to count and then that's it.  But it's been something new to introduce lately.  This is also where our "God" theme came in-- we talked about how we listen to God's voice and know it just like the ducks know Mama Duck's voice ;)

Then we got out the rubber ducks for counting and scooping.  We also had checked out a few board books about ducks from the library so he could look at them.  He likes putting the rubber ducks in a cup so I had that laid out with it.  He had pretty much no interest in the ducks and just wanted the cup this day.

Wednesday we had a bit of a rough afternoon.  Cooper's getting some teeth this week and has a lot of congestion with it and has just been whiny so we were both a little over it.  While I was making dinner I put the ducks in a bowl with water and gave him his net and put an empty bin next to it so he could scoop the ducks out and put them in the bin.  He did really enjoy this.  For about 5 minutes.  Once he scooped all the ducks out and splashed for a few minutes he was done.

When we got out the craft sticks for sorting, it reminded Cooper of his turkey from the Thanksgiving car ride, so we pulled that out again.  I loaded it up with just yellow "feathers" (sticks) and called it a duck ;)  He enjoyed pushing the sticks in and taking them back out.

We loaded up another sensory bin with blue shredded paper to represent water and filled it with ducks.  He liked throwing the ducks in the box.

Last up were these printables for a 5 Little Ducks gross motor game.  Cooper wanted to color, so he colored them while I made breakfast today.

And then I just laid them out on the floor and showed him how to jump from one to the other.  He was excited to try it.

And then he did it once and was done.  Which has pretty much been the theme of the week.  Pretty much every activity he gets really into and will even pay attention to for a while, but then when he's over it he just throws everything.

Which is how we ended up spending 45 minutes in a standoff about picking up these sticks.  I had already picked them up several times and was helping but he refused to pick them up.  So I just waited and kept prompting him.  Finally he did it, but it took a looooooooong time.  And then we repeated that with the blue filler from the sensory bin later in the week.  And the yellow sticks from tin can push.  We're still figuring it out together.  He asks to do the activities again, but he doesn't really want to do them and then he just throws it.  Usually I'm okay with a mess from him, but he knows how to pick up toys and he really just throws them for the sake of throwing it, so we're trying to teach him that it's fine to throw it all on the ground but he also has to pick it up.  I share that just in case it seems like we have so many great activities and it all goes so smoothly-- this week has been fun but has also led to some impatience on my part with how short some of the activities last and getting him to pick things up.  All a part of our toddler life.

Okay, back to the topic at hand... we had a lot of fun celebrating Rubber Ducky Day.  Cooper loves all the songs that go along with it and I had fun trying out a few new activities during the week.