Fall Fun ~ An Acorn Hunt

Oct 28, 2011

Looking for a fun Fall activity for the weekend?  Head outside for an acorn hunt with your kids.  Comb the woods, search under the trees, locate as many acorns as you can.  Take a bucket and count your way to full.

But the fun doesn’t end there!  Bring them in the house and hide them yourself.  Let your kids be the squirrels as they hunt all over for the nuts.  (If your kids are young, remind them not to eat the acorns!)

We have a ceramic little friend named Sammy, the Squirrel.  Above his head, he carries a nest filled with artificial acorns.  I hide them quite frequently and the kids squeal with joy as they run around the house trying to find all the acorns.  (Yes, the onset of Fall means a couple months of picking up acorns from my family room floor.)

Add an educational twist and use the acorns for counting, math or charting.  My son’s preschool teacher had the kids use large tweezers to put a certain number of acorns in marked cups.  Great idea!

Yes, the trains had to be in the picture too!
(We had just painted and traced hands.)
Happy Hunting!

UPDATE:  Thanks Heather for the comment warning against weevils in acorns.  Maybe it isn’t such a hot idea to keep real acorns in your house for a long time.  

3 Comments

  1. Heather @ Creative Family Moments
    Heather @ Creative Family Moments on October 28, 2011 at 3:21 pm

    This is an awesome idea! I read at Family Fun that they painted the acorns orange then used a sharpie to make them look like Jack O Lanterns! I thought this was awesome until readers wrote in that some acorns have weevils in them that start coming out in the house after awhile… just sharing that gross warning. My acorn display went outside after that. ( ;

  2. Kristen
    Kristen on October 28, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    Thanks for the warning!!

  3. Anonymous
    Anonymous on September 10, 2012 at 8:07 pm

    My oldest son and I were outside yesterday picking acorns to use in a craft project. I remembered reading on your blog last year about the bug situation – so thanks for the reminder! I did research it and found that if you soak the acorns in water and bake them in the oven, it supposedly kills those bugs. I guess I’ll have to wait and see!!