Herding Kats in Kindergarten: Rock Painting

Warning: this is a picture intensive post!

Last week I saw an idea over at The Artful Parent for painting rocks with crayons. Well, I'm not lucky enough to have rocks in my backyard, so in order to prepare for this project we had to take a field trip to the local creek! I figured that would be the best place to find rocks. Only my youngest and oldest elected to come with me - perhaps because it was 90+ degrees outside and the other two are smart enough to know air conditioning is way more comfortable! Still, we had a ton of fun, and I will share some photo highlights with you:

It was a gorgeous day if you didn't mind the heat - as Joshua clearly didn't!

I think this one is my fave - I love that they're holding hands!

After we went through the "Spooky Cave" as Joshua called it, we climbed down the dry creek bed.

He found a feather...

and a huge spider web!

I didn't think to check until after he put his face really close, but sure enough there was a spider in there!

He saw his first ever cat tail and was enchanted by it. He took it home with him, slept with it, and even took it to his doctor's appointment the next day!

He found a lost ball too, which just made his day - especially since it had a smiley face on it!

Here he is with some beautiful wild flowers. He looks so happy right? Well...

here he is just 2 seconds earlier saying "Just 1 more picture Mama!"

But I couldn't resist and had to take this last shot as he crouched on a rock and watched some minnows in the creek. His wonderment was just too cute!

Whew! That was a lot of pictures! But it was a fun, educational outing and I'm really glad we went! By the way, the reason there are no pictures of me was because my pockets resembled chipmunk cheeks as we neglected to bring a bag or basket for the rocks lol!

Once we got the rocks home we washed them and arranged them on a baking sheet lined with foil:

We baked them at 350 degrees for about 5-10 minutes.

When you touch the crayon to the hot rock it starts to melt and you can use it like paint!

I set Joshua up on another baking sheet. I figured the rim would help keep him from getting too close to the hot rock and accidentally burning himself! Note - make sure to insulate your table with pot holders and such because the rocks stay hot for a while!

My other two finally made an appearance as well - they were just as engaged as the youngest was!

All 4 of them painted multiple rocks, and so did I! It was a lot of fun to swirl the colors together and try to make designs.

Here's a plateful that we made. The kids have already asked if we can get more rocks!

Joshua in particular loved his rocks - he asked if he could sleep with them and even named them lol!

Tips: you can reheat the rocks if they get cold. Just pop them back in the oven for a few more minutes - for this reason I left the oven on while we were painting so we didn't have to wait for it to reheat every time we put the rocks back in. We painted about 40 rocks, and it took about an hour. We used a variety of crayons but agreed that Crayola worked the best - it left a nicer wax coating and less of an oily residue. The rocks are VERY hot. I used tongs to transfer them from the baking sheet, but it was very hard for the kids to remember not to touch the rocks as they were painting them. I wouldn't do this without close supervision and only in a small group setting of course! Still, this was by far the most inexpensive fun we've had this summer! From fetching the rocks to painting them, it was a great craft!

I'm linking this up for Monday Made It (even thought it's Tuesday lol!). Head over and see what everyone else is up to!