Rocks!

I love rocks!  I love to collect rocks, throw rocks, play with rocks and climb on rocks.  My two favorite places to go exploring and climbing on rocks are the North Shore of Minnesota and La Cote de Granite Rose in France.

~

My husband and I just celebrated 10 years of marriage by having a night away at our favorite little resort on the shore of Lake Superior, sans children.

We first went up to a beautiful state park to explore and climb on rocks.  Looking around in the gift shop afterwards, I again stumbled upon a wonderful book that I just HAD to have.

written by Peggy Christian and illustrated by Barbara Hirsch Lember

On each page of the book, a type of rock is described (i.e. skipping rock, resting rock, wishing rock, etc.).  I love the simplicity yet complexity of the text and, as usual, thought of a writing extension to go with it.

I collected a bunch of interesting rocks (the ones you see surrounding the book in the first picture above) on our evening exploration and plan on letting students either choose their own rock or blindly choose a rock and then write about what kind of a rock it is.  All of these pages will become a class book!

And last night my daughter and I went for yogurt at a build-your-own place and guess what I sprinkled on top of mine?  Chocolate rocks!  Okay, I'm a nerd...

Rocks, rocks, rocks!

Geologist: One who studies rocks, knows a lot about rocks, loves rocks, considers rocks pets, and stuffs her pockets full of rocks.

I've just described my 5-year-old daughter and soon-to-be Kindergartener.  Nothing quite entertains her and holds her attention like rocks.  So when we couldn't get in to see Monsters University at 3:30p.m. last Sunday (because it was sold out), I quickly ran through the possibilities of a plan B.  Throwing rocks! We're on vacation in Northern Minnesota, so most of the beaches here are beautifully rocky.  An even more brilliant idea then popped into my head: we'll collect a few to take home and paint them!

We had a blast painting rocks at the kitchen table...which got me to thinking about 2 things: a book and my classroom.  

 This is a neat book about the 10 rules you must consider when looking for the perfect rock.  This would be a fun beginning of the school year read and activity. Considering the rules and bringing in a rock could be the homework, painting your rock could be the schoolwork.  Kids could keep them on their desks or in a basket and use them as reading buddies (saw that idea somewhere).  I'm sure there are lots of other ideas as well.

It's a turtle...can't see the legs or head though.

Once I finished painting my rock, I started playing around with the plastic plate that was my palette and had a blast mixing the colors, making designs and writing words for my daughter to sound out.  

Then a lightbulb lit UP: this could be a fun way to practice handwriting (whole group or small group).

 

Once we both were finished I had yet another idea: we would take our painted rocks back down to the beach and leave them there for someone else to find so we could bring a smile to someone's face.  And of course if we leave rocks, we'll also have to take some more...

P.S. I wrote this post yesterday and today we went down to the beach to leave our rocks...and get more to paint! Here's mine.  Can you guess what it's supposed to be?