Nature inspired craft – Pine Cone Weaving
I’m so excited to have a guest on Rainy Day Mum today with a great little craft that would be perfect for some quick and simple tree ornaments as well. So I’m now handing over to Emma from My Little 3 and Me.
Hi, I’m Emma from My Little 3 and Me and I am very excited to be guest posting for Cerys today. She has been a great source of inspiration and encouragement for me in my first year of blogging and as my first ever guest post I am honoured to be here doing it here on Rainy Day Mum!
If your little ones are anything like mine then Autumn will have them collecting hoards of irresistible pine cones. We always end up with a huge pile of them and they are such a lot of fun for crafting, playing and learning with.
Today we’re taking a close up peek at a simple pine cone craft activity that is fabulous for developing fine motor skills and they look really pretty too!
Pine Cone Weaving
You Will Need:
- Pine Cones
- Coloured Yarn/pipe cleaners/ribbons/fabric scraps
Method:
- Rinse your pinecones clean and leave to dry so that the sections open up nice and wide. We sit our’s on top of the radiator for a couple of hours.
- Choose your preferred weaving materials. You may want to just use one at a time like the wool above or pipe cleaners below or you might want to mix it up and provide a selection of weaving materials at the same time.
- Let your children experiment wrapping and weaving around the pine cone. It’s a great fine motor skills activity for all ages. Children get to practise using both hands together, grasping and using a pincer grip. They can manipulate the different materials in lots of different ways building their muscle strength and dexterity and developing their hand-eye co-ordination.
I loved watching the children explore different weaving options and discover different methods and techniques. Older children, who have done some traditional weaving before, might want to try a very ordered under, over, under, over technique. They might experiment with weaving a number of yarn colours together at the same time or creating specfic colour patterns. Younger children might take a more free and random approach and love mixing up the yarn, pipe cleaners and fabric; wrapping and probably unwrapping the pine-cones time and time again!
The finished products look really pretty displayed on a shelf or window sill, or why not make a whole bowl full for the table or hang them up to make a pretty mobile?
Out Now! – Countdown to Christmas Ebook
When life gets hectic in the lead up to Christmas wouldn’t it be great to be able to spend a little time with the family creating gifts for others, food to enjoy together and traditions that make magical Christmas Memories?
But what actually happens is you spend hours searching through Pinterest looking for ideas and realise halfway through saying you are going to start that you have only 1 thing on the materials list!
I’ve been there!
So that is why we’ve put together our 24 favourite Christmas Activities, Crafts and Recipes with full materials lists and step-by-step instructions so that you have everything at your fingertips.
Produced as a PDF you can download, print and use these ideas throughout the festive season with your children and families.
Find out more as we share with you our Favourite Ways to Countdown to Christmas.
What else can you do with your pine cones?
Well after a quick rinse they are great fun simply as they are and they have so many uses…
- They’re a terrific natural source of texture that little ones will love to hold and explore.
- They’re super to add to water play. Children will love watching them float, bob and spin and of course they close up when they’re wet too so there are lots of super science and weather chatter opportunities there! Have you got a few in your bath-time play basket yet?
- They’re marvellous for maths fun and can be used for counting, weighing, sorting and sharing.
- They’re great for gross motor skill development with rolling, throwing, catching, kicking and spinning.
- And of course as we’ve seen above, they’re fantastic fun for crafting to develop fine motor skills.
Have you fallen in love with the humble pine cone yet?
Thank you so much Emma – please pop on by and see some of Emma’s other fabulous crafts and activities over on My Little 3 and Me like these adorable Reindeer antlers to make.
Check out of pine cone pompom ornaments for some festive pine cone fun.