Pom pom pine cone

We 'acquired' a couple of big pine cones from a very nice garden we frequent and finally got round to trying pom pom pine cones. The first time I got it out it led to hours of play for the boys. I gave them some tongs with the pom poms and pine cones as I had read about playing with tongs to help with fine motor skills and strengthening their muscles ready for writing. The tongs weren't so popular (I think they were a bit stiff to be fair) but once they had filled the pine cones with their hands they moved on to colour sorting with our Grimms rainbow boxes and then cooking and weighing on their wooden balancing scales. I had to get them to do the pine cones again the other day so I could take a photo!