~DIY Mushroom Counting Log~ ¡A Contar las Setas!

This is one of those dreamy crafts I’ve had in my mind for weeks and am just now finishing up. We have been doing acorn crafts galore in my home because we are just surrounded by big and beautiful oak trees. These acorn cap toadstools are just the sweetest and I love the way they turned out! My goal as I teach my children, especially in these early years, is to just make our play more intentional. We don’t need formal lessons or worksheets yet, just having things on hand to count is all we need for teaching and reinforcing our numbers (in Spanish & English!) So I present to you all, the mushroom counting log!

This was almost too easy to make for how magical it turned out. Ten acorn caps painted red, with dots painted on top corresponding with different numbers (one dot, two dots, three dots..all the way up to ten) then I just hot glued it onto little sticks and voila! Little counting mushrooms. We are definitely fungi fans in this family, I studied botany and mycology briefly in college and we are always fascinated by the mushrooms we find on our nature walks.

Once the mushrooms were ready I found a drill bit that matched and drilled 10 holes into a log I had cut and sanded earlier this week. The girls can take the mushrooms out on their own and count as they put them back in OR just play with it however they want! It was a boat earlier today and the mushrooms were little people sailing along.

This craft is everything I love. Time in nature and an art project with my little ones, hands on learning, imaginative play AND Spanish learning all in one. Something else that I love is that it is FREE to make. The log it rests in was cut from the woods, the acorns and sticks were gathered by my little ones and all it cost was a little time and some creativity. We are surrounded by mamas posting these absolutely breathtaking and incredibly curated playrooms stocked with wooden toys that we drool over for our children and it is hard feeling like we can’t create magic if we can’t buy those beautiful wooden toys. I feel it so intensely some days as I scroll through and covet those darn wooden rainbows I see everywhere (am I the only one?!) So, I hope that this is proof that magic can be free too.

Also, this is going to be the base of our seasonal autumn table! Do you do anything to celebrate the seasons with your little ones? This is really the first year for us and I am so excited. I’ll be making more special elements for their otoño table as the weeks go on but this is a great start.