Yuletide activities for preschool, nursery and young children's home learning  
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Mischief Mouse's collection of craft activities for preschool and early years.
Printable resources to help support children's early learning and play
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.
Calculator Caterpillar's range of activity ideas to support math, reasoning and problem solving.
Hope Hedgehog invites visitors to take a look through some articles of interest ...
Navigator Narwhal's outdoor - in activity ideas for preschool and early years play.

 
A Pine cone playdough factory!

All new activity ideas for dough are being added to playdough-activities.com
Magical Mammoth - recipes, edible and to play with ..
Turn your table top dough activities into a world of pine cones!


Build a pine cone playdough activity

Coniferous, evergreen trees are pinecone factories!

Seeds can be found under each of the scales that make up the shape of a cone and as the weather warms up the scales open out, the seeds fall to the ground and hopefully, seedlings just might grow. Seeds can also be removed by hungry birds or begin their germination process within the cone as it falls to the ground and is buried beneath the debris of the woodland floor. Fir and pine trees have needle sharp leaves! 



Activity resources needed
  A quantty of brown playdough - handmade recipe
  Real fir or pine cones
  Pine cone sheet and + seed scale template
  Brown craft foam on amazon.co.uk
  Gold glitter for texture
  Pine needle branches for role play and cones

Pinecone scale outline teplate pieces

OUtliine pine cone playdough sheet
Colour pinecone playdough sheet
 



Print the colour or outline pine cone sheet above and laminate to protect the card from the oils in the dough.

Print the cone scale templates and cut a prefered number from brown craft foam.

Source real pine cones as a reference and artificial needle branches for children to experience a similiar texture without the risk of harm!
Pine cones for play
Artificial pine needle branches
 
Explore symmetry whilst playing, number and shape as the playdough is moulded into domes and the different size craft foam scales are inserted into the dough to build patterns around the outer surface.

Add interest with glitter and extend to explore what happens when fircones are pushed into the dough and removed again.

Learning includes
  Concept of size, order, pattern, shape and lines of symmetry
  Process of impression making, negative and positive space
  Supporting individual creativitiy using materials and model making techniques

Impression taking with pine cones




Additional ideas and resources for preschool play
Real pinecone craft activities - google image search
    Make bird seed cakes using fircones, bird seed and either vegetable fat/lard or peanut butter!


 Back to the playdough page or visit playdough-activities.com

Make bird feeder with pine cones peanut butter and seed






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