Autumn Leaves and Conkers Please - Conker Activities

Autumn Leaves and Conkers Please - Conker Activities from Gemma's Childminding, a Hygge Accredited setting.

'We love to incorporate natural, eco-friendly and recycled products into our play. Our activities are very much child-led these days rather than adult-initiated. I find that being around nature whether this is outdoors or bringing nature indoors really supports the children's learning and wellbeing.

I've noticed some real changes in the children since adapting to a more 'Hygge' based environment and embracing a slow pedagogy.

Some snapshots of how we have enjoyed incorporating conkers into our everyday play this season.'

Woodland Theme Autumn Display

We set up a small display of interest for the children to explore. Lots of natural resources including conkers, pinecones and leaves. We incorporated various lights and some magnifying boxes for them to identify the different textures and colours up close.

They especially loved feeding the conkers to the woodland animals.

Playdough

We made some cinnamon dough and added lots of autumn ingredients. This was such a lovely sensory activity and great for fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. The concept of making marks in the dough using various objects and then being able to squash them and start again sparked lots of curiosity. The dough provides so many open-ended play opportunities.

Autumn Water Play

The perfect addition to our water play ….. Lots of filling and emptying containers, scooping and transporting. Will they float or sink?

Home Corner

So much fun using the conkers with different play equipment for cooking and feeding the dolls. Lots of imaginative and open-ended play.

With thanks to Gemma for this inspiring blog post. Give her a follow over on Instagram and Facebook.

Find out more about the Hygge in the Early Years Accreditation here.