Little Explorers: Woolly Webs

Conker season is upon us, but it passes quickly, so we’d encourage you to get outside with your Little Explorers now and go a-gathering! This is a great time to explain that conkers grow on horse chestnut trees, and that you can spot these by looking out for their leaves. You could point out the different trees and their now slowly browning leaves on your favourite walk in the country or in town.

You will need:-

• Conkers
• Wool
• Sticks
• Your finest singing voice

Once you have a good selection of conkers, you’ll also need to find a bundle of slim, straight and strong twigs - this is a good way to encourage your Little Explorers to be discerning and choose only the most appropriate twigs for the task.

Take your largest conker and carefully poke six narrow, deep holes around the edge. Push your twigs firmly into these holes. This activity seems to work best with slightly dry conkers. It helps the twigs stick in more firmly. We tried gluing the twigs in to fresh conkers but that wasn’t a great success.

Ask your helper to choose their favourite wool colour and tie this to the first twig, with the knot at the back. Weave the web together with your Little Explorer. It helps to sing, “Over and around, over and around,” to get the pattern right and it was surprisingly easy for our Littlest Explorer to get the hang of it. To swap in a new colour, simply tie it off at the back (to hide the knot) and continue weaving until it is complete.

We’ve heard that having conkers around your house deters spiders. So far, we can report that this is not working! Do you have any tried and tested ways of keeping our eight-legged friends outside? We’d love to hear.