Conkers
Horse chestnuts art and game
Roasted chestnuts are a real treat and in season from October and to March. If you haven’t tried them be sure you buy some and try it out. Your best bet today is to get them in a store as most of the real chestnuts trees in Canada and the US are few and far between as they are endangered due to a blight that entered North America in the 50’s.
But, you probably have noticed the Horse Chestnut in parks or maybe even in your backyard. (Horse Chestnuts are not related to the sweet chestnut) The horse chestnut is very bitter and not edible to humans, but edible for deers and squirrels.
In UK they also call it a conker tree. Conkers is the name of a children’s game played by two players, each with a “conker” (horse chestnut) threaded onto a piece of string. They take turns striking each other’s conker until one breaks. The Brits take this game quite seriously and even host a World Conker Championships.
For more information about how to play conkers click here
The greatest part of organizing an outdoor playgroup is I always learn something new from our members. One fall we had children and parents joining us from Sweden. The girl taught us how we could make different animals out of chestnuts. The kids and adults had so much fun making them and playing with them. Thank you so much Maria for teaching us how to make art out of chestnuts.
How to make animal art:
You need:
Pick chestnuts or buy them if you don’t have any horse chestnuts around.
Matches
Toothpicks
String
You can make a spider by sticking matches into the chestnut to make legs. You can also put the sticks into a circle around the nut and weave string and voila you have spider in a web.
Another thing is to make different animals like pigs and cows. By using matches in different lengths and different variations of chestnuts you can make new animals. Use your imagination and see what you come up with.
Chestnuts jewelry
Horse chestnuts can also be used as beads.
You need;
Chestnuts
Drill
String
How to:
Drill wholes in chestnuts, put strings through the hole and voila, you have conker jewelry.
