There is only so much exploring one can do inside and as soon as the weather gets nice we get outside fast!  This year we decided to continue to build our butterfly/bird garden and have put in several new additions including a bird bath.  Of course, Farrah would rather consider it a rock bath for her treasures!

While enjoying the new bath and bird feeders, Farrah started digging… and sure enough she found some rocks (“really shiny ones too!”, as she was sure to tell me).

She immediately began washing them, and washing them, and washing them, making sure they stayed nice and shiny.

She even pointed out that some rocks were most definitely the big ones and some were tiny.

After making sure they were squeaky clean, she began to label them by color “my orange treasure”, “my gray treasure”, and “my white treasure”.  She was very much focused on learning every bit of information about these rocks, or treasures.

That’s the beauty of learning through play.  I never drilled Farrah on her colors, she asked.  I never sat and went over big vs. little, she picked it up.  We aren’t out there doing some fancy curriculum or cognitive quizzing, we are in our backyard playing with a bunch of rocks that dad picked up at home depot for landscaping.  With just those four rocks and a bird bath we are learning SIZE, COLOR, NUMBERS and we are using our IMAGINATION and CREATIVITY.

There is so much more that we can do with rocks and here are some fun activities from around the web to take this learning one step further:

The Artful Parent: Byrd Baylor and Painted Rocks

Martha Stewart: Rock Crafts

Irresistible Ideas: Melted Hot Rocks

Little Urbanites: Rock & Roll Painting