Conkers

It's that time of year again. CONKERS! Apparently, small boys can't resist stuffing their pockets absolutely full of them, and to be honest neither can I! There's something about their shiny perfection, the french-polished swirls, the sensation you get when you put your foot on a prickly case and gently crack it open to see if you've "found a WHOPPER!"

The trouble is, after a few conker hunting expeditions your house can get pretty full of the pesky things, and they soon lose their lustre.
My husband heard a radio program which claimed that if you put a conker in a corner of every room in your house you'll never have cobwebs again. Apparently they exude something spiders can't stand and the arachnids all move out. NOT TRUE. Our house is conclusive proof that no matter how many conkers you conceal about the place the spiders will still festoon the ceiling with cobwebs.

I'd be the first to join the anti-health-and-safety-lobby. Banning the game of conkers seems nuts. However although watching Daddy drilling holes in a good handful of them and helping mummy thread them onto strings, was good fun, whacking yourself around the head with a conker is less entertaining.

As we discovered, small children can't play conkers. They swing them around their heads like some kind of medieval mace, clobbering themselves and anyone who comes within string's length, which makes it quite difficult to disarm a sibling hell-bent on causing serious injury. So we came up with a more creative and less violent use for them:

Conker Art!

Conker sunflowers

We started simply, making pictures that involved lines of conkers embellished with other things we'd picked up. (Great opportunity for counting practice and size comparisons too.)

 

Conker snail with the cases for his body.

And progressed to bigger projects...

I did an outline of Danny and he filled it in- corn-on-the-cob mouth and hair, sunflower seed shoes, fircone shorts,"With an acorn underneath to be my willy."
This year Zac's pictures have got a bit more advanced, due to his absolute obsession with combines!

It's all good fun and gets the conkers and the kids out of the house.