📖 If You Find a Rock by Peggy Christian
📷 by Barbara Hirsch Lember (illustrations in this book are hand tinted black and white photographs)
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This book celebrates the variety of rocks that can be found, including skipping rocks, chalk rocks, splashing rocks, and more.
Ideas for Exploration and Play
🔹Rock Wash - Grab a bowl, bucket, bin, etc. to hold water in and find a few larger stones. Set up a space for making the stones muddy or dirty in another way then explore what happens when the stones are washed. The water used activates your child’s sensory system which can be calming as well as a marvelous way to help learning stick in their brain. Water play is also a wonderful way to enter into messy play while still keeping it comfortable and accessible. Experience wonder and joy as well as some rocks seem to change color when wet versus dry!
Add in imaginative play by pretending the rocks are animals that need baths!
Skills activated and practiced → activating the senses, imaginative play, focus, communication skills, wonder/joy
🔹Beautiful Designs - Familiar shapes catch our eye, hold our attention and can even inspire an emotional response. Researchers have discovered that people all over the world experience feelings of joy when looking at and interacting with shapes like circles and spirals. Shapes can also be found all throughout the natural world such as the spiral of a snail shell and the oval of some leaves.
Find as many stones as you can with different sizes and create a design on the ground in your own greenspace or make it a community display for others to add to at a local greenspace.
Skills activated and practiced → directs and holds focus, activates positioning behavioral schema, inspires joy
🔹Spreading Smiles - Turn found rocks into happy faced friends, then leave them around your outdoor spaces to spread smiles to others in your community. Find a few rocks with space enough for a face and grab a permanent marker of paint. Work together to make a face for each rock, older kids can add images or words to their rocks as well. Have fun finding sneaky or out in the open areas to place the rocks in your local greenspace for others to find!
Skills activated and practiced → Fine motor, social skills, empathy, focus
Enjoyed these play invitations and want to participate in more? Check out our other book inspired play on our Learning resources blog or join us for a class where you can meet like minded families and learn together in the best classroom of all – Nature!
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