Seek & find matching game with stickers

Stickers has been a big hit with every child I’ve ever met and Eva is not exception. So whenever I find some fun, but not too expensive stickers I tend to buy them (which is not as often as it sounds) and save them for a time where stickes are needed. Today I decided that Eva and I should use some of those stickers to make a seek & find matching game.

You’ll need:

• thick paper, cardboard, construction paper or similar (I used A4 sized paper cut in half for the game boards)
• 2 identical sheets of stickers
• scissors
• optional: ruler

Eva is currently 2 years old and I found the amount of stickers we used (about 10-12) suited her fine though she finished quickly. More stickers will make it more challenging and suited for older children as well.

Tip: We made two different sets of seek and find matching games with respectively 11 and 12 stickers each. If the game becomes too easy too fast, you can mix the two games to up the challenge.

 How to:

1. Cut out the cards.

To make the cards cut out little squares that will fit one sticker each.

I measured with a ruler to make them all the same size, but you don’t need to do that unless you’re a perfectionist like me. I also did the cutting since Eva is not that great with scissors yet, but with older children they’ll probably want to do it themselves.

2. Place the stickers.

Put one sheet of stickers on a paper, which will make up the game board, and one on each card.

I told Eva which sticker to take of the sheet (she needed help, especially with the smaller ones) and then I let her stick them on the little cards with a little guidiance. I did try to direct her a bit more on where to put them on the game board as I thought she might want to put the cards on top of the game board when she found a match (which she did), so I needed to make sure there was enough space between the stickers. You don’t need to do that. Instead you can just play the game without placing the cards on top – and then let your child place the stickers where ever they want.

3. Play.

When you’re done with making the game it’s time to play. Simply draw a card and find the matching sticker on the game board and keep playing until all stickers have been found. If you’ve made room for it, your child can place the cards on top of the matched sticker on the game board – otherwise just draw a new card and find it on the game board.

Below you can see the two seek & find matching games we ended up making: one with African animals and one with pirates. The animal one is definitely her favourite.