Practice Counting With Conkers

It’s now officially Autumn! So why not try some fun activities using conkers?

To begin this activity, take your children out on an autumnal walk to search for some conkers to use.

Once you’ve collected your conkers, you can do lots of different activities, including using the conkers to practice counting. To start, grab a couple of pots, containers or bowls and ask your children to add a certain number of conkers into each pot.

This will help your children to:

• Use number-related language spontaneously.
• Recite the numbers 1 to 10.
• Use numbers to identify how many objects are needed for each pot.
• Match numbers and quantity correctly.
• Demonstrate their curiosity about numbers, by offering comments or asking questions.
• Compare different groups of objects, separate groups of objects in different ways and begin to recognise that the total is still the same.

To help children further develop their understanding, you can:

• Use number-related language e.g. ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, ‘lots’, ‘fewer’, ‘hundreds’, ‘how many?’ and ‘count’ in a variety of situations.
• Model counting the objects in a random layout, showing the result is always the same as long as each object is only counted once.
• Model and encourage the use of mathematical language by asking questions such as ‘how many conkers will fit in the pot?’
• Talk with your children about the strategies they’re using to work out a solution to a simple problem e.g. by using their fingers or counting aloud.
• Encourage estimation e.g. ‘how many conkers will it take to fill the pot?’

Making a conker snake or caterpillar

Making a conker snake or caterpillar is not only great fun for your children but also a good way to help them with their number bonds to 10 as they can move the conkers up and down on the string.

1. Make a small hole in the conkers.
2. Your children can then use their fine motor skills to thread the conkers onto a piece of string or a pipe cleaner. 
3. Then stick eyes and legs onto the conkers to create the snake or catepillar. One thing to note is that it can be difficult to get things to stick to the conkers so we recommend using peel-back stickers or super glue.

What are number bonds?

Number bonds are often referred to as number pairs. Put simply, they’re the pairs of numbers that make up a given number.

You can explore the concept of number bonds by using clear plastic cups and conkers.

1. Line up the conkers and plastic cups and offer your children a simple addition sum to begin with e.g. 1 + 2.
2. Your children should place one conker in the first cup and two in the second, then count these and place three in the third cup.

This activity has similar learning opportunities to the counting conkers activities. However, you could also extend this activity by looking at the lifecycle of a caterpillar or using the caterpillar for a prop for when reading the story, The Hunger Caterpillar.

With both of these activities there are plenty of learning opportunities:

• Using scales to measure and balance different objects against the conkers. Your children will learn about numbers, shapes, addition and subtraction.
• Sorting and arranging objects by size.
• Dunking different objects in water to see which ones sink and which ones float.
• Cut different objects in half to examine the inside under a magnifying glass.