Hello Forest Friends Families,
First of all, I miss seeing your faces everyday and hope you are all pulling through during this unprecedented time.
Second, rocks are an absolute treasure according to almost every preschooler I have ever met. Luckily, they are also quite accessible on a neighborhood walk or in your backyard. Once you and your children have found a nice collection, your sensory play with rocks will provide a conduit to many forms of learning: fine motor, math, literacy, and storytelling, for example.
All painting helps develop fine motor skills, and rocks are a particularly effective in honing these skills. Rocks have different textures and all types of nooks and crannies, which demand kids to problem solve and think creatively about how to cover the surface with their paintbrush.
Children can practice counting by figuring out how many rocks they have in their collection. Also, for more of a challenge, a parent or children can add dots to the painted rocks as if they’re a pair of dice. Counting and simple math equations can be done like this:
Kids can practice spelling their names or new words if you put a different letter on each rock. Finding big, flat rocks can allow kids to write the letters themselves. If the shapes you have are not so ideal, a parent can add letters with a sharpie. Children can then order the letters to make their own name which also provides a fun learning experience for them.
They could also learn new vocabulary while talking about all different types of designs to add to their rocks. Encourage them to paint dots, lines, spirals, etc. on the rocks. Then, a sorting exercise can help them remember this vocabulary as well as practice organizational skills.
Encourage kids to name their rocks, perhaps of friends from CCS that they miss seeing every day! Then they could feel like they have some friends in their home and/or be more inclined to create a story about what their rocks did that day. How would Jarrod, Carrie, and Stephanie play in the office together as rocks?
Perhaps you can write down their words to make a book? Also, I hope you all enjoy watching 🙂 I’d love to see pictures of your painted rocks, send them my way!
So much love to all of you,