One of our favourite Fall activities here in my home daycare is to spend a morning collecting chestnuts. Toddlers and preschoolers love searching for and collecting them, and the chestnuts that we bring home provide us with hours of fun, and countless, fun activities in the days and weeks that follow.
Early Tuesday morning, just after 9 a.m., we hopped in the van and hit the town in search of nut trees. My mom had told me the location of a gigantic chestnut tree so we stopped there first. We were not disappointed!
We arrived to find hundreds of chestnuts scattered all over the yard and sidewalk of a corner lot, just a few minutes from home.
We jumped out of the van, armed with our gift bags, and we collected dozens and dozens of gorgeous, glossy nuts. The tree was so loaded with them that they were actually falling all around us as we gathered them off the ground.
The best chestnuts to find are the ones still nestled in their prickly shell. If the shell is cracked, you can carefully pry it a part and pluck the nut out. There’s something so satisfying and rewarding about this process. Because of the sharp spines on the outer shell, the children have to use a very gentle touch and control the placement and movement of their fingers as they open the shell and remove the nut. Their fine motor skills really get put to the test here.
After loading up our bags we hopped back in the van and drove all around town, hoping to find an oak tree that we could collect acorns from, but sadly any oaks that we found had only a couple of acorns underneath it, so we weren’t as lucky with those.
We stopped at several parks (perfect for a play-break), the cemetery and a ball field, but alas, no acorns.
The Hooligans had fun at the ball field, running invisible bases, playing under the trees climbing the bleachers and and kicking their chestnuts around.
We were out and about for most of the morning, and when we returned home, the Hooligans poured their chestnuts into a shallow bin and I gave them the scoops, jars and muffin-tins and they sorted and poured while I fixed us a picnic lunch.
There won’t be many days left for eating our lunch under the trees so we’re making most of the warm sunshine while it lasts!
How have your kids been playing outdoors this week?
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
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Kierna Corr (@CiarnaC)
Oh my that is a lot of ‘conkers’ – I am so impressed, I love them when they are so shiny too. Looks like Fall has certainly arrived with you. Kierna
aMuse Toys (@aMuseToys)
Collecting and cracking open fallen chesnuts is so simple, but such a fun learning activity! We’re also jealous of your crisp, Fall day picnic 🙂
Dennis
Those look more like buckeyes from the photos? Looks like fun though!
EES
Must not be near 100 degrees there like it is here today based on the clothes the hooligans are wearing!
We have a peanut butter jar full of different types of seeds my son has collected on his hikes and park visits. Can you think of any projects on your site where we might be able to put them to use?
happyhooligans
We’re having a gorgeous fall so far. Mid 70s by afternoon, which is glorious for this time of year. I’d love to have your 100 degrees though!
Your jar of seeds sounds wonderful! Have you thought of using them in a bin for sorting and scooping? I’m not sure how old your son is, but most kids love that kind of thing. You could provide him with scoops, a funnel, interesting containers for him to scoop, pour and fill. That could be one thing that you do with them. You could also recreate a sunflower, where you draw a large circle, and he cuts and glues yellow leaves all around the circle. Then he can fill in that middle circle with seeds, similar to a sunflower.
One more idea would be to simply give him a piece of construction paper and a bottle of glue, and allow him to create a collage? Or you could write the letters of his name in white glue, and have him place seeds all along the letters.
Hopefully some of those ideas sound good to you. We’ve never actually done a craft with seeds, but I’d love to see what you do create with yours. Feel free to link up a photo on my fb page!
Cheers for now! Jackie
deb
Where are you getting chestnuts
happyhooligans
I wrote that post in late September of last year, Deb. I’m in Ontario, Canada, and they’re all over the ground, where-ever chestnut trees grow at that time of year.
Claudia White
I live in Florida, and we don’t have chestnuts. We only have very small acorns for the children to work with. I am a preschool teacher, and I would like to know if there is a way I can get some for the kids. Do you know of any company that ships them?
happyhooligans
I just found some fresh ones on Amazon, Claudia. Here’s my affiliate link if you want to check them out: Chestnuts, Fresh, approx. 1lb