We're Getting Ready to Rock!

The Sprout Scouts Playcamp is READY TO ROCK this week with our Rocks & Stones theme. Rocks are one of our favorite play themes here, and it certainly is a theme worth repeating. We will likely revisit some of our favorite rock themed activities and we'll be exploring some new ones as well. While Sprout Scouts Playcamp is nearing the end of its summer run, the nice thing about a rock theme (and just about any of our Summer themes for that matter) is that there is still much to explore well into the Fall and even year round.

I spent some time yesterday adding in some themed materials and activities into our play area. A few updates were made to our Ever-changing Book, a couple of our drawers stocked with a Rocks & Stones Observation Station and sensory play trays with kinetic sand and stones.

We have an amazing rock and mineral collection from my mom. Rather than setting out the whole collection at once, I stock the small baskets nightly with some interesting ones and the drawer also contains magnifying glasses, magnifying containers, a couple of rulers (S is very into measuring these days) and a prism scope. You could add in a scale if you have one, options for drawing and documentation or whatever else might be useful for observation.

The boys both loved singing and acting out this Stone Soup song. Don't forget to check out the short story stretcher activities we did last summer with the story of Stone Soup!

We happened to take a little day trip yesterday and stopped by a little gift shop on the road. Outside the shop as we had our picnic lunch, S noticed a beautifully painted rock left in front of some flower planters. What a find! While we have not actually painted and left our own Rocks for Kindness, we have been on the receiving end of a few and we happened to have one of our finds in the car still! We swapped out the rocks and made our way. S already has in mind that he'd like to paint some rocks of our own this week...



We will also be engaging in some great sensory play activities, both indoors and outside, a rock & mineral scavenger hunt, making our own rock n' roll band, smashing geodes, performing some rock science experiments and more!

We got out some of our favorite rock themed books from our own collection and some from the library. We explored rocks on the light table (such an incredible experience!) and had loads of fun in the first of our rock themed sensory bins, I-Spy Letter Rocks in Rainbow Rice. S took it upon himself to find everyone's special letter (the letter that begins our name) and Y got a kick out of holding his Y rock.

 There are so many great rock themed activities out there:

• Fantastic Fun & Learning has an amazing collection of 30 Playful Ways to Teach Young Children About Rocks, and don't forget to check out their list of Books About Rocks for Young Kids as well!
• Here are Four Ways to Use Stones in the Classroom [or your home] from Little Pine Learners, a great website for nature based learning and play.
• Check out the Preschool Rock Theme at Preschool Powol Packets!

Rocks are a fabulous theme on their own, but you can also integrate it with our Digging in the Dirt Theme or explore the vast history of fossils and rocks with our dinosaur themed activities.

We will be back with more rockin' play ideas later this week. Until then...

Rock on & happy playing!