Rocks are Cheap yet Priceless

Here Are 10 Things Families Can Do With ROCKS!

 What are ten things a family can do with rocks after children no longer put things in their mouth? Top of the list children love to throw and skip stones in the water. Help them look for thin flat rocks and show them how to flick their wrists to have rocks hit the water on the flat side. Kids and adults can pick a target to hit like another big rock or a spot a reasonable distance away so everyone can participate.

 Children like to make messages shapes like hearts, circles, squares and triangles with rocks.  They also like to draw with rocks and soon find rocks that are soft like sandstone and hard like granite.  Point out that it is important not to deface public places.

Making Cairns

  Making rock piles that balance called cairns teach engineering. Scouts and many cultures use certain rock piles for warnings and trail markings. The Inuit and others make them to symbolize protection, memorials, holy messages, and directions. How high can the cairn get? How can the rocks be piled large to small, small to large, or mixed up? Can they make a little bridge or window? Cairns can decorate gardens and shorelines. They can say “I was here.”  Will they be here when I return? Children can paint cairns and adults can varnish them to stay shiny in gardens.

 What lives under rocks?  Land or water, there are surprises underneath, lessons  about nature and reasons we should not be afraid, only curious.

Decorate, Collect, Skip & Throw, Research...a few things.

Comfort Rocks

  Children can decorate pet rocks with wiggly eyes. They can make rock families and animals by painting and gluing rocks together. Sometimes rocks are just for looking at, touching, putting under your pillow, keeping in your pocket or surprising Mom when she does the wash. Children have treasures and they like to talk about them. They also like to make rock collections of beauties to keep. They can keep cheap souvenirs of places the family visits.

 Rocks are fun to photograph whether the kids have climbed a rock for a better view or used them to step across a stream on hot day with a little helping hand. If they catch the sun just right in clear water rocks look beautiful and shiny.  Coat with Modge Podge or spray with clear acrylic to retain the shine.

  There are many library books and sites about rock basics to learn about the three types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.

 Museums have rock collections and books to identify local rocks. Young children may be most interested in color, shine, and the texture of rocks. Collections could be organized by those categories and reorganized as they grow older. For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/ Learning Through the Seasons live and podcasts.