In class, we recently read If You Find a Rock written by Peggy Christian. We enjoyed thinking of rocks as skipping rocks, climbing rocks, wishing rocks and splashing rocks. It gave new life to something we encounter all the time and provided us with a fresh perspective. It also got us talking about rock collecting.
To get started, you may wish to visit Salt the Sandbox, a website created by a parent who has two very curious boys. The site details how his boys go about finding, collecting, naming and playing with their rocks. We visited the site together at school last week and the children were excited about the ideas presented. I offered extra credit to anyone who wanted to create a collection and share about it when we return to school in January.
In addition to the ideas on the website, children also have fun sorting rocks (and lots of other items, for that matter.) They can be sorted by color and size or grouped like they were in the book we read, but here are some photos from rock sorts my students have done in the past to give you some other ideas:
However you decide to approach the project, I hope that it will be fun for your child and maybe even fun for the whole family!
Please note: this is not a mandatory project, just a suggestion.
