Make it at Home Monday: Shabbat Story River Rocks

I've seen some beautifully handcrafted river rocks used in preschool and homeschool settings lately. Many times they are used with handwritten letters as an alphabet manipulative or for emerging readers to practice sight-words and even spelling their own names. I've seen gorgeously painted pictures of weather-themed graphics for use at Calendar Time/Circle Time. I've seen amazing graphics done as well in this fashion for use with story telling activities. I have horrible penmanship and am not particularly artistically inclined either, so after seeing a photo of a beautiful set of story river rocks done entirely with stickers, I felt a sense of relief and inspiration. I found small river rocks for sale at our local Dollar Tree in the floral department. There are larger options available at craft stores that would better accommodate larger graphics and/or smaller hands. Our Dollar Tree also had a collection of brightly colored alphabet stickers that I used for a set of alphabet river rocks (not pictured). When I recently purchased a pack of small Shabbat themed stickers, I had an idea--they would be perfect for creating Shabbat Story River Rocks, a great addition to our Shabbat theme this week or to any Shabbos afternoon! You could, of course, make story rocks related to any number of themes using or creating your own small stickers/graphics. Here's how:

Make it at Home: Shabbat Story River Rocks
You will need:

• river rocks in the size/shade of your choice--I purchased mine at the Dollar Tree and they are on the smaller end and in a variety of shades, light and dar
• accordingly sized stickers/graphics--if you are printing your own graphics, consider printing onto sticker paper to save the effort of gluing
• Mod Podge or similar product to seal (I used the goopy stuff you paint on and a small foam paint brush--you can also get spray versions if you have a well ventilated work space available)

Place your sticker on its rock, making sure to smooth it as carefully as possible over bumpy surfaces so that no edges are coming up. Paint a thin layer of Mod Podge over top. For best results, you may wish to coat the entire rock with a seal. Allow to dry before using for story-telling and play. 

I've used story rocks in a group setting to have children make up their own story about Shabbat. They can be used individually or as a family in this manner as well. They can also be used to sequence events of Shabbos--what do we do first, next, last? Additionally you can play games like "I spy" or "What's Missing?" using the a few or all of the rocks (for more advanced players) to guess which picture you might be thinking of or which one is missing from the collection. 

Happy playing and story-telling!