Making…”Find the Lost Ducks” game

When my brother visited us a few months back, he brought one book each for DD and DS about sheep. (Why sheep? I don’t know. Maybe the illustrations were cute? They were on offer?)
Anyways. One of them is about the parable Jesus told about a shepherd searching for his lost sheep and not giving up until it was found in Matthew 18:12-14.
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

DH designed this game based off the parable, because DD had enjoyed a similar lesson and game in Sunday School involving looking for lost sheep and returning them to the paddock.
We thought that it makes for good fun and a great way to impart counting and number identification skills.

First, draw the background on an artblock sheet or similar kind of thick paper or backing. This is just a simple pond with a cute frog at the side and some flowers and grass.

Next, draw or print and cut out little ducks. We made 10 and numbered each one of them.
You can laminate the ducks if you want it to last longer. Put a little blu-tack on the back of each of the ducks.

You’re all set.
Hide the ducks in various spots around the room or house. Tell your child that there are 10 ducks hidden all around the room. You need to find all the missing ducks from 1 to 10 and bring them safely back to the pond. They’ll be off even before you can finish saying “ready, set, go”. 🙂

All found and accounted for, well done! 😀