Stones...

When it's not possible to get outside, it is always wonderful to get a little bit of nature inside!  Inspired initially by the awesome alphabet rocks over at I am Momma - Hear me Roar I went a little crazy over the summer and collected literally DOZENS of rocks and stones when I went camping by a beautiful river out in the Mongolian countryside.  I was fascinated by the qualities of the beautiful rocks I found, the different shapes and sizes, and how amazingly colourful they became once dipped in water!  I was like a child in a lolly shop!



With those stones I made my own alphabet set, and the children have explored them occasionally (considering the letters are those of a language other than their own- I recently made a Mongolian set too)

 

Around that time I also saw the lovely story stones that were made over at Pre-school Play and have been meaning to make some ever since, but just never got around to it.  So, this past week when the children came they found a stone drawing invitation laid out.

Monday we only had a small group, so we brought out the invitation again on Wednesday when we had a bigger group.  The children were quite interested in the notion of decorating, mark-making and drawing on the stones.

There was great concentration, and careful work...



And the end results were vivid and varying:

From the joy of making a mark...

drawing people...

creating connecting scenes...

and exploring literacy- Mishel wrote (by sounding out and invented spelling) the names of all of the children in the group on one of her stones!

Some children stayed for only a few moments, others stayed focused for quite some time, but everyone had time to explore and to pursue as they liked.  Here is the final roll call:

We will get to making stories with these someday, but for now the children enjoyed simply exploring and the opportunity for art making using another medium.  Have YOU tried drawing on a stone lately?  If not you should, it is actually very satisfying! J