Wood Cookies: The Perfect Teaching Tool
Updated: Mar 22, 2022
What is a wood cookie you may ask? Wood cookies are simply cross-sections of a tree or log! They can be big, they can be small and anywhere in between!
Depending on what kind of tree they are made out of, they might still have the tree’s bark on them like birch or maple, or it may come off as the wood dries, like a cedar tree. Different types of wood will have different weights to them, but they will all work just the same!
You can cut wood cookies with both power tools or some good old-fashioned elbow grease and a hand saw! If you do not have the tools or resources to cut them yourself, get parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles involved! There is always someone who is just waiting for an excuse to use their tools!
You can use wood cookies as the full circle, have them cut in half to make matching, or drill a hole in them to be able to add a string and hang them somewhere.
The Upper and Lower case wood cookie matching that we use at Forest School was a project that my father helped me with one weekend. We made 2 full sets of them using one $3 cedar fence post that was leftover after a building project at the farm! Word to the wise though- moms don't always appreciate their grown children drying out cedar wood cookies in their oven ;)
Here are some ideas of things you can do with wood cookies:
Addition and subtraction- Wood cookies with different numbers, as well as ones with + - and =
Making words- Woods cookies with all different letters to be put together to make words.
Upper and lower case letters- Upper case letter on one side and lower case letter on the other and then cut them down the middle with a squiggle so that they only watch with their proper mate.
Storytelling (story stones)- Draw different pictures or items on the wood cookies. Have children pick them out of a bin and make up a story with all
the pictures they have.
Building towers- the wood cookies can be balanced on top of each other to make towers. The children can then add doors and windows to them as necessary.
Decorating for holidays- Wood cookies make beautiful ornaments for a Christmas tree! Drill a hole in the top of the doo cookies and they can be hung on a tree! Or the children can decorate them and gift them to their parents as coasters!
Name tags for dividing groups- make a wood cookie with all the children's names on them and use them when dividing up groups. They will help with name recognition!
Memory games- making duplicates of anything (shapes, symbols, letters, numbers, pictures) and using them as a memory game by putting them all face down and flipping them over two at a time, and trying to find the pairs.