Autumn Crafts for kids Kids crafts tutorial

Easy play dough acorns

play dough acorns - the gingerbread house

I set up an Autumnal invitation to play for my 4 year old when he got home from school yesterday. He’s play dough crazy so I thought I would combine some Autumnal coloured play dough with some of the acorns we collected at the woods over the weekend.

Equipment needed for easy play dough acorns:
Autumnal coloured play dough – red, orange, yellow, green and brown
Acorns and acorn caps (I placed them in a bag in the freezer over night to make sure there were no nasties in them)

How to make easy play dough acorns:

I set out the tubs of play dough and acorns on a tray and let my son explore.

tubs of play dough

The first thing he did was add more tubs of play dough (!). Then he started rolling small pieces into balls and pushing them into the acorn caps. The play dough was tacky enough to stay in place.

play dough acorn - the gingerbread houseWe thought they looked great so he made as many as he could in different colours until he got bored. His 2 year old sister wanted to have a go, hers are the squishy purple and white acorns. This is a great activity for developing fine motor skills so we’ll definitely be trying this again.

play dough acorns - the gingerbread house

My 4 year old said this was the “coolest thing ever” – which I take to be pretty high praise from him. We were able to talk about Autumn, acorns, shapes and colours  whilst he was playing. I wonder what other Autumnal crafts nature will inspire us to do?

16 Comments

  • Reply
    Lauren
    October 17, 2014 at 2:38 pm

    Cute idea to get all ages involved in, I love play dough and have just bought my 2yr old nephew some for xmas, will need to get thinking of ideas to make.

    • Reply
      jenny
      October 17, 2014 at 11:00 pm

      Play dough is great, there are so many fun things to do with it – he’ll have a blast!

  • Reply
    Joanne Mallon
    October 17, 2014 at 2:46 pm

    That’s so cute and easy to do too. Your 4 year old is right, I think you have discovered the coolest thing ever.

    • Reply
      jenny
      October 17, 2014 at 10:57 pm

      Thanks, it doesn’t happen very often!

  • Reply
    Louise
    October 17, 2014 at 8:54 pm

    Ooo this looks like a fab autumnal activity! Oscar is still a bit young to play with the soft stuff (booooo) but I’ll definitely keep this in mind for next year 😀

    Louise x

    Confessions of a Secret Shopper

  • Reply
    Hayley
    October 17, 2014 at 9:05 pm

    What a fantastic idea! I love these, so creative 🙂

    • Reply
      jenny
      October 17, 2014 at 10:56 pm

      Thank you, we had lots of fun with them.

  • Reply
    Gude @HodgePodgeCraft
    October 21, 2014 at 11:18 am

    This looks fun! I love the purple ones best (it’s my favourite colour) – great way to mix play dough and nature 🙂
    #Pintorials

  • Reply
    Nicola
    October 21, 2014 at 8:56 pm

    This is just the kind of activity my 3 kids would enjoy doing together . We re working on fine motor skills with my 2 and 4 year old now so i ll be adding this to our list #pintorials

  • Reply
    Sara (@mumturnedmom)
    October 21, 2014 at 9:20 pm

    Great autumn activity. Something that my 2yo could enjoy too! #Pintorials

  • Reply
    Karen Bell
    October 23, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    Lovely idea bringing autumn nature indoors for some creative play.
    Thanks for linking #LetKidsBeKids

  • Reply
    Andrea
    October 25, 2014 at 11:53 pm

    Brilliant! Thanks for linking up to the #parentingpinitparty

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