Painting Rocks
Painting Rocks
What do you need?
Some rocks!
Big ones, little ones, light ones, dark ones, ones from the garden or from your local park
You can also paint seed pods, leaves, trees, baby siblings!
Some paint
use chalk, Posca pens, mud, nail polish (if you like to live life on the edge!), poster paint, cornflour/water/food dye mix or anything else you can think of or that your child likes to play with.
Click here for a DIY paint blog
Painting tools
fingers, sticks, paint brushes, sponges…any other ideas?
Use whatever “paints” you have on-hand
How to proceed…
Take the fun outside.
We all know how messy children can be. Set it up so you can hose down the mess afterwards.
Step back
Children should have the space they need to explore and play with this activity in their own way…which probably means messy, and unlike anything you would do!
OR join in the fun
If you feel like you prefer a neat, tidy, well-painted rock then do this yourself!!
Or…have a go at making a bit of a mess yourself. Get your hands dirty, get side tracked smooshing paint between your hands or sing a song while you paint.
Then what?
Leave the rocks to dry in the sun (this seems ambitious on the day I’m writing this as there is not much sun around!).
Keep the rocks high and dry until the “paint” has dried.
What could you do with your painted rocks?
Play with them! As always, you will generate ideas for these rocks which you could use as prompts for your children, but you could also just sit back and let the kids decide. After all, they are the experts on their own creativity!
The rocks could be people/families and go off on adventures
They could be “food” to be added to a meal in your mud kitchen
They could be a hide-and-seek prop (the more colourful the better) (if you need more inspiration, here’s a blog about hide-and-seek)
Decoration for pot plants
Place them on display somewhere special.
Build a wall with the rocks, using mud as “concrete” (this was a favourite at a Nature session last Term).