Acorn Throwing

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We are starting our A-Z of Play at Home today, whoo-hoo! Are you joining in?

A is for Acorn Throwing! It is Autumn here by us and that means we have Acorns in Abundance, so we are using it for playing(and learning)!

The idea with this series is to play with “stuff” you have at home and does not require lots of time for setup. Getting your kids to PLAY: away from technology and screens. It is also lovely to spend time with them, and then letting them play by themselves as well. PS- you don’t have to throw acorns, small rocks or balls could also work;)
I send my daughter to find 3 buckets, and she brought out these three. I wrote numbers 1 to 3 on them and arranged them on the lawn. The furthest bucket will get you 3 points and the nearest one, 1 point.

We then collected a “few” acorns. Each player had 5 acorns to throw in the buckets, thus five chances per turn.

Now this seems simple, but don’t be fooled, learning is also taking place. Estimating distance, estimate how hard to throw the acorn, where to aim, counting how many acorns, how many turns, how many points, taking turns, praising each other are all examples of what was actually learnt.

Originally I thought of only counting up each player’s score and see who has the most per turn, but my daughter wanted to write it down to keep score and count it up with her calculator, so that is what we did. We can’t let a perfect learning opportunity go by, right? Writing numbers, counting it up, comparing the scores…

This was simple fun! We played for about 20 minutes, then the buckets were jumped and hopped over. This last part was impromptu and child-led play and I don’t mind it at all. They burned off some energy as well!

Don’t forget to share your photos to our Facebook wall or use the hashtag #justplayathome on Instagram so I can find your activities and perhaps share it too!