🐼 Panda Fishing Pond

Fishing for hungry friends

Panda Fishing Pond is a free counting game for young children that you play in your browser. Pip the panda sits on a little wooden dock by a sunny pond with a fishing rod. One by one, hungry friends come to visit: a penguin, a kitten, a duckling and a bunny. Each one has an order. "Two orange fish, please!" says the kitten. Can you help Pip catch exactly the right fish?

It is made for children aged about four to seven, and it is gentle in every way. There is no timer, no score to beat and no way to lose. The orders are read aloud, the friends are cheerful, and every correct fish gets a happy thank-you.

How to play

Move the hook through the water with the mouse, your finger or the arrow keys. The fish swim around the pond in different colours. When a fish touches the hook, it bites, and Pip reels it up. If it is the fish the friend asked for, it goes into their basket, and the order counter goes down. If it is a different fish, Pip gently puts it back in the pond. When the order is complete, the next friend steps up.

Ten days

The game is split into ten short days, each a little harder than the last. Day 1 has simple orders of one fish in a few colours. Over the next days, the orders grow to two, three and four fish, and more colours swim in the pond. From Day 6, the fish have patterns too: "three fish with stripes" or "two spotty blue fish". By Day 10, the friends ask for mixed orders of up to five fish, so children need to count carefully and look closely at every fish.

Stars without stress

Every finished day earns stars. Three stars mean only one or two fish went back in the pond by mistake; two stars, a few more; and one star for any finished day. So children are rewarded for looking carefully before they catch, but nobody ever fails a day.

What children learn

Panda Fishing Pond practises counting to five, recognising colours, and later spotting patterns like stripes and spots. It also teaches children to hold an instruction in mind ("three yellow fish") while they work towards it, and to check before they act. The hook control builds fine motor skills, and the read-aloud orders support listening and early vocabulary.

Tips for grown-ups

Turn the sound on so the friends can talk. For the youngest players, say the order together and count the fish out loud as they are caught. If a fish goes back, talk about why: was it the wrong colour or did it have spots? On a tablet, children can simply drag the hook with a finger.

Meet the friends

The penguin, the kitten, the duckling and the bunny each wait their turn at the end of the dock with a speech bubble that shows the fish they want as little pictures, and every fish gets a green tick as it is caught. When an order is complete, the next friend steps up. Pip the panda is the patient hero of the game: he never gets cross when a wrong fish comes up, he simply lets it go and casts again. That calm, friendly feeling is what makes the game work so well for young children who are still learning to count and to wait their turn.

Short and sweet

Each day only takes a few minutes, which suits short attention spans, and the next day opens straight away so children can keep going if they want to. The ten days together make a gentle path from one fish of one colour to careful counting with patterns.

Play anywhere

Panda Fishing Pond runs in any modern browser on tablets, phones, Chromebooks and computers, with no download and no account. Stars and days are saved only in your own browser. There are no ads in the game and no chat. See the Parents & Safety page for more.

More games like this

Catch fish on a spinning toy pond in Magnetic Fishing Game, go fishing with a cat in Kitty Goes Fishing, or match sea-animal cards in Go Fish for Kids. More counting and colour games are on our Kindergarten Games page, and every fishing game is on the Fishing Games page.

Frequently asked questions