Easy play dough acorns

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.

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.

We 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.

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?