How do I get the children to pick mushrooms on their own.
My doesn't seem to do so.
any thoughts?

They can't pick them on their own. That is your job! So get busy!!

Kids can trip over mushrooms and not notice. Whenever you see a mushroom, start hunting for a kid, pick him/her up and drop him/her on the mushroom. Hopefully they'll make it all the way to the food bin with the mushroom intact. However, I've had instances where they get stuck on a tree root, building, or even the "wrong" side of the food bin itself and "poof", the mushroom is gone. It's REALLY nasty when they lose a red mushroom!!! When the game says that the children are "untrained" they mean it!

how do you get more than one child to pick mushrooms? I tried and lost a red one (mushroom, not child!), and there are no berries left! Bother! (or similar word...)

It depends on which kid you can snag first. Again, these kids will NOT pick mushrooms on their own--you have to physically pick them up and put them on each and every mushroom for them to pick it. And if you drop them too far away from the mushroom, they won't see it and won't pick it. Watch the message line and it will say the child sees a mushroom or some such thing--they'll only pick it after they "see" it.

You have to be fast in getting the mushrooms or they will disapear. If you have the school, use the drum on the right of the school building and all the kids will come running. Then just grap a kid and drop the kid on the mushroom. Also try putting everyone on your research to get tech points to "buy" level 2 in farming so they can plant crops.

Oh. I read a post from wanabeshores on 8/10 which said that if more than one child got to mushroom first, the food count would be higher. But, I couldn't get them to do that. I tried picking more than one up, and got the 'they are too young for that' message!
Anyway, I have fishing opened up now so I no linger care about the mushrooms. Tra la!

You got that because the game thought you were trying to mate them lol.

those red mushrooms are like 45 food points! are there any other differant color mushrooms?

brown is worth 8 I think

Yep, just two colors. Red and brown. Red=45 and as IBteri said, brown=8 in the bin.

there's also an "Event" where a villager finds a mushroom... i had mine eat it.... good thing too... 500 in the food bin and kid became an adept healer on the spot..or was it a farmer??? lol sooooooo many kids hard to keep track

Just one quibble... 8) Why are the best mushrooms RED , when they're, the red ones, are usually poisonous

As far as I know, only the mushroom you get through an event may be poisonous. All the others you pick just naturally are ok

I dropped 3 kids on one mushroom and each kid picked up a mushroom. Just thought I would share the tip. It works with both. Haven't had any bad mushrooms.

A good trick for the early stages when your low on food and are waiting to farm(or if your just bored later)When you see a mushroom push the spacebar to pause the game, then start plopping as many kids as you can on the mushroom(be careful not to smash the mushroo,put them off to the side and watch the action change to picking up mushroom)then hit the spacebar again and all the kids you sucessfully gotten over there will have their own mushroom!

I'm been lucky (and quick) enough to be able to place up to 8 kids to get that mushroom!

I read there was a way to get more than one child to pick the same mushroom. If you don't want to know, don't highlight the following text. Pause your game <space bar>, then pick up your kiddos one by one and drop them on or very near the mushroom (you will see the status message "picking a mushroom", then unpause your game <spacebar>, and away they go. I have seen up to 4 or 5 kids get the same 'shroom and you get food points for each.
Sometimes they jam up around the food bin and I think not all the mushrooms get counted. But you're good for more than one, in any case.

I have had all 13 of my tykes on the mushroom and it counted for all of them!

I have heard rumor of purple mushrooms... Was this just on the palm?

There are tricks to rack up the mushroom points, you have to PM because I won't spoil.

i have heard of these, lol i just don't need them, since the high scores aren't working right...

Hmm, I takke it the red ones are rare. Haven't seen a single one yet. *Sighs* And I had bad events only

My highest count is 18 for a regular shroom. I piled 8 on a red one once.