Pine Cone Drop for Babies

 

N has been exploring the pine cones in our backyard lately. To extend his exploration a little, I decided to make a simple Pine Cone Drop baby play activity for him.

I wasn’t sure if he was ready for it, or if he was, if he would be interested for more than a few seconds, and ended up being pleasantly surprised by how much he enjoyed it.

 

(N was 9 months old.)

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

 

Materials for Pine Cone Drop for Babies

• Pine cone(s). {Any other medium sized object, natural or not, works just as well.}
• Shoe box.
• Knife or scissors.

 

I simply grabbed an empty shoe box we had on hand and used a sharp knife to cut a small window into the lid.

N first explored the opening in the box.

 

 

When I handed him a pine cone, he explored it in a new way by scraping it along the side of the box.

 

 

He didn’t really think to put the pine cone into the box himself but when I dropped one in, and then another, he started looking for them right away.

 

 

Then, he started digging for them

 

 

and actually got one back out!

 

 

After that, he spent some time dropping pine cones into the box himself

 

 

and pulling them out again.

 

 

He did it repeatedly for a few minutes before starting to get interested in something else. Here’s his observation pose, pine cone still in hand 🙂

 

 

I was very pleased with how much fun N had with this activity that took me about a minute to set up – and I know that box will serve us well in the future!

 

Looking for other activities for babies? Check out

Baby Play with Goop

Water Sensory Bin for Babies

Baby Play with Rice

 

Or try these pine cone activities for older kids:

Painting Pine Cones

Pine Cones and Pumpkins

Pine Cones and Acorns in the Water Table

 

Do you have lots of pine cones in your backyard? Does your baby like to explore them? Leave a comment below!

 

 

Click here to subscribe to my newsletter and receive an email twice a week with news from our house and links to all new posts! If you prefer daily updates, you have the option of subscribing to my RSS feed or my printables RSS feed on the same page.

Join me in my Facebook group where we discuss simple play ideas for young kids every day!