10 Activities Toddlers Can Do With Rocks
My kids LOVE collecting rocks and honestly, I do too. Every trip we take we come home with a few more interesting specimens. They are such a cool toy! They have different colors, textures weights, and sizes. Here are some of our favorite simple ways to play with rocks!
1. Line them up on lines
Materials: Rocks, Paper, and Markers
Instructions: Draw a line on the paper and then line the rocks up on it. You could make letter or numbers, straight lines, zigzag lines, wavy lines, etc.
This activity practices fine motor control.
2. Fill shapes
Materials: Rocks, Paper, and Markers
Instructions: Draw a shape on the paper and fill it with rocks.
This activity teaches spatial awareness.
3. Build a house or a city
Materials: Rocks and anything else you want to use
Instructions: Make a city from rocks! (Just like in the book Roxaboxen)
This activity practices fine motor control and small world make-believe play.
4. Paint them
Materials: Rocks, Paint Brushes, and Paint
This activity practices fine motor control and creativity. You could hide them around town as little surprises for other people or start a rock garden in your yard with your painted rocks. You could also use this as an opportunity to talk about petroglyphs and other rock art that ancient people made.
5. Stack them
Materials: Rocks
This activity teaches spatial awareness and lends itself to discussing spatial concepts like “under”, “over”, and “next to”. There is an artist named Michael Grab whose rock-balancing creations defy gravity and it’s fun to watch a short video about his creations as you practice stacking (linked above).
6. Wash rocks
Materials: Rocks, Water, Soap (optional), tub (or you could always do it in a bathtub)
This activity is fun for sensory play.
7. Sort rocks by color or size or weight
Materials: Rocks
This activity helps develop observation and problem-solving skills.
8. Playdough (or kinetic sand) buildings or faces
Materials: Rocks and play dough or kinetic sand
Instructions: You can use glue or kinetic sand as the mortar that holds the rocks together to make a building or you can press the rocks into the play dough or sand to make a face.
9. Load them into trucks
Materials: Rocks and Trucks
10. Identify them
Rocks are really interesting! It’s amazing to learn about. We like to observe them = their color, their weight, how rough or smooth they are, how they look up really close with a magnifying glass, etc. And then we like to try to figure out what kind of rock/minerals they are.
Here are a few books that we love about rocks
Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran A story about a girl who builds rock cities in the desert and plays with her friends in them.
Lubna and Pebble by Wendy Meddour A touching story about a young girl who decides to make a sacrifice to comfort her friend.
Petra by Marianna Coppo A story about your perspective and believing in yourself.
What Can You Do with a Rock? by Pat Zietlow Miller A story about a girl who is playing creatively with a rock.
A Rock is Lively by Dianna Hutts Aston With beautiful pictures of rocks, this book is a quick overview of some basic facts about rocks.
Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Bernett A cute story about two boys digging a hole to find treasure, but they find something extraordinary in a different way than they expected.
