Playgroup Art & Craft: Liquidambar Lollipops

R is fascinated by the different leaves, seedpods and stones we find on our walks around our suburb. Just down the road is a massive liquidambar tree that drops hundreds of spiky seedpods on the footpath, so we collected a bagful to take to playgroup this week.

Inspired by this wonderful post on Casa Maria's Creative Learning Zone, I put out some pots of paint, each with a second colour swirled gently through it, and let the kids go wild with dipping the seedpods into the different paints. Some of the younger children dabbed and rolled the seedpods onto paper to make interesting patterns; for the older ones I stuck a thin bamboo skewer into each seedpod for ease of dipping, which had the benefit of turning the pods into lollipops! A shake of glitter provided the finishing touch.

At the end of the session we had lots of stunning multicoloured seedpods. R took hers home and - after a couple of days of drying - distributed them among her toys to 'eat'. Apparently, they were delicious!