You will need:

• Small pebbles
• Red and black paint – we recommend acrylic paints
• Paint brush
• Green card (or green foam or felt)
• Black Sharpie
• Scissors

Step 1: Paint your pebbles red

Paint ten small pebbles red. Acrylic paint covers the stones well whereas kids paints don’t tend to set well on stones.

You will probably need 2 coats to get a nice, even finish.

Step 2: Paint the heads and wings

When the red paint is dry, use black paint to paint the ladybird’s heads.

Paint a black line down the centre of their body for the wings.

Step 3: Add some spots

Paint some black spots on each ladybird.

Paint just 1 spot on the first ladybird, 2 on the next, 3 on the following one and so on until you reach 10.

You can make your black spots by printing them using the tip of a cotton bud to get a nice round dot, or you can make them using a paintbrush.

Step 4: Add some eyes

Finally paint on some little white dots for the ladybird’s eyes. This brings your little ladybird pebbles to life.

You now have colourful ladybird counters from 1 to 10.

Step 5: Make your game board

On a piece of green card, draw ten leaf shapes. In the middle of each leaf, write a number – from 1-10.

You can also use a sheet of green foam or green felt if you want.

Step 6: Ready to play

Your ladybird counting game is all ready to play.

Ask your child to pick up a ladybird and count the number of spots on its back.

Then they must place it on the leaf with the matching number. When all the ladybirds are on the board count out loud with your child from 1-10, both forwards and backwards.