When I deliver courses and workshops, one set of resources particularly liked by participants are my painted stones:
When I work in schools, they seem to be just as popular:
If you look at the photo above, the stones are stored in grass baskets. Natural materials seem to be best presented in baskets and other natural storage containers. They look less attractive when kept in plastic boxes:
Painted stones are an asset to any stone collection. They can be made by children by painting stones and varnishing them. The detail that older children can achieve is lovely. These stones depict local life in a fishing village in NE Scotland:
A useful resource for decorating stones are acrylic deco pens that do not require varnishing. Unlike permanent marker pens, they have bright colours, are waterproof and are great for stonework:
The painted stones are great for story telling. For instance, if you look at the stones in the photo below:
In turn a child picks a stone and helps make a group story…
Once upon a time there was a ladybird called Lucy.
She lived in Scotland.
One day Lucy decided to go for a walk over a hill.
She wanted to see if she could find the end of a rainbow.
Many children also like playing with letters. They can be used in free play and many structured activities to aid the learning of letters and sounds. For example, letter stones can be hidden in an outside area and children can see which ones they can find. If your school is using a synthetic phonics approach then this is a useful way to reinforce the letters and the sounds they make.
The next possibility is to create word stones. Paint whole words on stones. Children can do this for each topic! Again these can be used in different games to help children develop literacy skills. For example, stones can be placed in a school garden. The children have to find the words and use them to make a poem or write a sentence – the level of difficulty depending upon the age and ability of the children.
Many maths activities can use number stones. Again, the range of activities is huge. Feel free to make some suggestions….!
I’m wondering whether I’m going through a rocky time…this is my third post in succession about stones. I think I’ve been quite inspired through visiting other blogs and websites. For example, the Victoria and Albert museum have launched a World Beach Project that encourages you to submit beach art to their site. There’s lots to see already.
Gwynneth Beasley recently blogged about outdoor art and this reminded me about some lovely artwork 6 and 7 year olds at Kinellar Primary School created as part of an outdoor art lesson last November. The photos have been kindly supplied by Lucy Brydon, Visiting Teacher of Art:
What I particularly like is that the stones used are the gravel from nearby paths! The children had to find a clear surface upon which to work, or create one by clearing away the leaf litter in the school garden.
Naturally using whatever happens to be lying around is great for art work, creating minibeast habitats and many other activities. This Zen Garden in a Czech infant school is a lovely example of an attractive gravel pit. Children can make large scale stone art by drawing and raking in the gravel and moving around the stones. The ones on the side are actually green potatoes left over from a potato harvest.
I frequently get queries from course participants about my collections of painted stones and other rocks and how to source such material. In Scotland it is important that the Scottish Outdoor Access Code is followed. Always check by-laws at beaches and observe the Fossil Code. It is important to never remove rocks and stones from walls, no matter how derelict, without the landowner’s permission.
DIY stores and garden centres are often good places to look for a variety of rocks and stones. Decorative pebbles can also be bought from stores such as Ikea or Hobbycraft.
The pebbles used in the maths activity in the above photo have been bought from Au Naturale. They are semi-polished river stones.
Many children love throwing stones. This worries a lot of teachers who are put off using stones for play and learning purposes. The trick here is to teach children to throw stones safely. This will help them judge distances between themselves and other objects in space. Let them take turns to throw stones into a bucket of water, puddle or large body of water. This almost always works as a focus. Ensure there is plenty of distance between the child and other people, buildings, windows, cars, etc. In the UK it would be sensible to write the rules and routines around using pebbles into a risk benefit assessment.
Would you believe the big explorer & I spent much of this week trying to find the best way to paint on our on rock collection? I finally found some pens like those you suggested & we’ll be creating our own gems soon enough. The only limit is your imagination!
So many great ideas in this post Juliet – thanks for sharing them. I’m particularly drawn to the setup for creating a natural artwork. And I’m off to look up those pens. Just this week we were busy painting and drawing on driftwood, but even the permanent markers were pretty unimpressive.
Thanks for your comments. I actually had to limit myself on this post. My intention is to blog about stones in natural artwork too as well as stones as features in an outdoor space. Everywhere in the world rocks and stones are a common bond.
Jenni I’m sure you can find the pens somewhere in Australia. They are expensive but last a long time. The consistency is similar to tippex except there’s lots of different colours. If not let me know and I’ll send you a packet! I made my first batch just over a year ago and the colours are still going strong.
I wrote a post about using stones for story telling a while back, but the site it was published on has since disappeared. Might give it a dust off and republish back on my own blog! (Will link here of course). Love those pens you used because they give such vibrant colours. Jenny if you find them anywhere in Australia please let me know!!
I’d love to see your story stones post. Yes bring it back to life! You owe this to your readers! LOL!
Oh yeah! This looks like something we ought to be doing.
In searching for a readily available version of those acrylic paint pens I came across a site for surfers. Apparently they use these pens to decorate their boards. A lot of them like the Elmer’s and Sharpie brands.
I love this post Juliet. Our dry creek bed would look even more irresistible with some rock art by the children! Like Jenny said, there are so many great ideas here. Thanks for the inspiration.
Donna 🙂 🙂
Inspiring!
Loved your stones, Juliet – How can we find out if someone like Jenny in Australia has been able to source those pens? I have a set of stones with aboriginal symbols that I made up last year with a fine black texta, which were a hit with storytelling around Aboriginal themes and dreaming stories.
And we hope to have a dry creek bed soon in the dry old Mallee in Australia – as Sherry and Donna point out, the bigger stones with all sorts of drawings on them would be a great addition to this…I love the way the ideas buzz around and grow and take off…
I love this post! I can’t wait to try the storytelling idea, and using numbers for math is fabulous too. Thanks for sharing this. You have a great blog, by the way. 🙂
Hi, just found your site tonight and I’m so pleased! Just a stone’s throw away myself in NI, love your painted stones. We used painted pebbles for storytelling, my daughter found a beautiful long stone that was perfect for painting on The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Thanks for the link to Mindstretchers too 🙂
Thanks for your kind words, Carly. I love the idea of a long caterpillar stone.
In this post http://strasilo.blogspot.com/2011/01/sljuncana-slagalica-pebble-puzzle.html
and in this http://strasilo.blogspot.com/2011/01/jos-kamencica-more-pebble.html
I write about pebble puzzle.
Thanks for these links Huana – much appreciated!