Pet Rocks and Other Rock Crafts
Kids love to paint, especially when they can paint on something other than paper.
Rock crafts can be made into many different things, like garden markers, pet rocks, and stepping stones.
For this activity, you will need rocks of different sizes and shapes, tempera paint, and paint brushes.
You don’t have to use glue, permanent markers, or googly eyes, but you can if you want to.
If there are rocks outside, let the kids choose what they want.
You can tell them to find rocks that look like a certain animal or bug or have a shape they like (lady bugs and frogs are popular choices).
Go to your local gardening or landscaping supply store if you want to make something bigger, like a stepping stone, garden stone, or vegetable marker.
For older kids, it might be fun to find a lot of small rocks and put them together to make a creature or object.
If you don’t have glue strong enough to stick rocks together, you can use clay instead.
Using rocks of different shapes, you can make a car with an oval-shaped body and four round wheels.
Let the kids paint their projects and give them plenty of time to dry.
You should write the name of the child on the bottom of the rock so that it can be found again.
If the rocks aren’t meant to go outside, you can give them to their new owners when they are completely dry.
But if you want to put them in the garden to mark a row of carrots or just for decoration, you should treat them first so that the paint doesn’t wash off.
If you can’t find a sealant for the paint that is safe for kids, finish the last step when they are in bed or doing something else.
When the sealant is dry, it can be put into its new home outside.
