The twins are loving being in Reception year and I am trying to help them with their maths skills at home in a playful fun way. I saw some wooden acorns in an Etsy listing and thought they would make a lovely way to practice counting and sorting.
The idea comes from Montessori and Waldorf teaching. I found a seller on ebay who has lots of wooden toys including the little bowls. They are really tactile. All the girls enjoyed playing and sorting them.
I couldn’t decide whether to paint them or leave them natural. The girls wanted them painted and although I would have liked to do it myself and get a good finish I thought it would be good to allow the girls to have ownership over their toys and paint them even if they didn’t end up so neat.
We used some pastel colours and the girls quickly set to work.
The finished acorns look really pretty, if a bit messy at the edges.
There are lots of ways to play with them which brings a maths element to the game. You can simply count them. Then say 1 more and 1 less.
You can match the acorns to the correctly coloured bowls.
Then use them for counting in twos, as we had two for each colour.
The best thing is the children can decide how to play with them. They are also good for role play. The girls currently have them in their kitchen as play food.