There’s a fun trend going around and I jumped right on the bandwagon. You may have noticed painted rocks hiding among the landscaping, in parks and on the trail edge, or you may have painted rocks and hidden them yourself or like me, you are just learning about it now. Regardless, it’s a fun and engaging way to connect kids with their creativity, nature and the community and suitable for almost all ages.
I first became aware of this when a local facebook group popped up. People were so excited to paint rocks and to get their kids out collecting rocks, painting rocks and searching for rocks. One morning I asked my 4-year-old if we should collect and paint some rocks. He literally dropped his digger, jumped up and said ‘let’s go’, now if you know my son Mac, you know that it’s verrry difficult to get him to ditch his digger. So we were off to a great start.
We went off around the neighbourhood and collected rocks in Mac’s ‘Owski’ backpack (Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc) and ran into a friend who was also super excited to join in our adventure. The boys came back to my place and we painted the rocks with acrylic paint. It’s usually recommended that you seal the painting for longevity, but I opted to let them fade and blend into the landscape a bit more naturally without any sealant.
A few days later we went on another adventure around the neighbourhood and our friend’s sister joined in on hiding the rocks around the neighbourhood. I love this concept for it’s simplicity and how many ways it encourages the kids to learn and explore. It’s continues to engage the kids when we walk around the neighbourhood the kids look for their rocks. We have our next lot of rocks ready to paint and will be out again before too long.
While our art tends to be on the more primative & abstract end of the spectrum, some of the art people are doing it absolutely stunning; inlcuding mandalas, illustrations, cartoon characters to name a few. So I encourage you to seek out your own area’s (your city/town name) ROCKS page or start one yourself. Painting rocks really ROCKS.
