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Mischief Mouse's collection of craft activities for preschool and early years.
Printable resources to help support play - colouring, mark making, labelling, promoting, engaging and extending..
Magical Mammoth's recipes to play with and recipes to eat ..
Stitch Squirrel provides a little tree space for some needle and thread projects  - handmade resources to support learning and development.
Activities for math - Calculator caterpillar's activity ideas to support children's numeracy, reasoning and problem solving play.
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Navigator Narwhal's outdoor - in activity ideas for preschool and early years play.

Magical Mammoth - recipes, edible and to play with ..    Playdough activity ideas 
  Adding theme, focus and loose media to dough.
                               Horse chestnut conker dough

Late September and early October are the harvesting months for conkers, for many this is a most memorable part of the autumnal calender and used alongside dough they provide a focus for children's play and support fine motor scissor cutting skills. Combine green and brown dough with the nuts and enable modelling, moulding, shaping and enclosing activities. Create your own conker encased spiky shells with snips to the outer surface of formed dough balls. Cut open to reveal if there are any nuts hidden inside ...

Conker horse chestnut playdough activity and printable resources
 
 




conker icon   Resources needed
   A quantty of brown and green dough

   Left and right handed scissors

   Choke test tube to check conker sizes
conker icon   Optional printables
 
  Display poster conker, tree and leaf

  Horse chestnut leaves playdough mat

  Horse chestnut leaf outline template

  Conker nut and shell outline

  Conker rhyme

  Outline numberline 1 - 10

  Outline numberline 11 - 20

  Colour conker numberline 1 - 10

  Colour conker numberline 11- 20




Horse chestnut, spiky shells, conkers and leaf poster
Horse chestnut leaves printable
Horse chestnut leaf outlines
Conkers and conker shell outline template

Outline conker numberline 1 to 10
Outline conker numberlines 11 to 30



Colour conker numberline 1 to 10
Colour conker numberline 11 to 20


Conker horse chestnut rhyme


To help risk assess this activity please consider the following 
  Is a choke tube needed to test the size of conkers - on amazon.co.uk
  Are parents concerned about the possibility of conkers being used in the setting
  Will staff be deployed to monitor or participate in an activity
  Are a specific number of conkers needed for an activity - count them out for play and in again for storage
  Wipe with an anti-bac solution before play to remove bacteria and mould spores
conker icon A few facts about conkers
Horse chestnut tree  
Some are small enough to be choking hazards
  See why they're considered toxic / poisonous - John Robertson's the poison garden.co.uk
  The saponins / poison that conkers, leaves and other plants contain also our wash clothes
  By boiling conkers the saponin chemical is extracted
  The HSE doesn't require that googles to be worn when playing with them - conker health & safety
  The word chestnut and a spiky shell appearance can cause confusion between conker nuts and edible sweet chestnuts - google image search

 All new activity ideas for dough are being added to playdough-activities.com





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