Conkers!

We have had lots of fun collecting conkers – we’ve got loads. We decided that at 2 and 4, Betty and Louie were a bit young to be playing conkers so I had to think of lots of ideas for what to with all of those conkers! Here’s what we did:

We drilled holes in them to make conker necklaces, practising fine motor skills and hand – eye coordination at the same time. To further support physical development, I put a bowl outside and we practised throwing the conkers into the bowl. We discussed the best way to throw the conkers as if we threw them to hard, the conkers bounced back out again. 

 

 

 

  

We made the dinosaurs an autumnal world using leaves, conkers and twigs, using our imaginations.

We made conker shakers and sang a song about Conkers, helping children to develop their communication and language skills and their creativity.

We had lots of fun making a ‘conker run’ using old cardboard and the toilet roll tubes. It’s quite a clumsy attempt compared to the ones we saw on Pinterest but it was fun!

Finally, we used the conkers to help us with some Maths activities. I asked the younger ones to pass me different amounts of conkers to assess their counting abilities and asked them to choose the cup which had the most conkers in it, counting the conkers aloud.

I asked Betty to fill the labelled cups with the corresponding amount of conkers. As her number recognition is getting pretty good, I showed her how to do some adding. She used the conkers to help her to work out what would happen if she added 1 and then the wooden counters with numbers on helped her with her number formation.