Monday, July 14, 2008

Unplugged Group Project

This week's theme is Stone.



Be sure to link here if you join in
and even if you don't, check out some of the
other projects over at Unplug Your Kids.
Princess and I have been saving a basket of rocks
for a project or two, but they went mysteriously
missing over the weekend during a cleaning
mission of Farmer Dad's. He claims he never saw them,
and since I have no video evidence of any kind, I will
drop it. He does have a habit of "mucking about" with
our school area however, so I doubt his story is accurate.

We do have a lot of rocks and stones here, so we proceeded
with out project. First we brought out Princess's "pink beach stone"
collection for her to sort, count and admire. Then we found more stones
and melted some crayon pieces to decorate them with (we came across
a finished piece from a previous go at the "hot rock" project and P decided she wanted
to do it again. We put the crayon pieces in a mini muffin tin and melted them in the oven.
Then she used some old paintbrushes to "paint" her rocks with the melted crayon.
Here are some finished pieces. The sunrise/sunset and the mountain are my faves.
Princess prefers the flower designs.
I hope you all have fun and come back tomorrow for my Tuesday book post.

17 comments:

Gottfredsen said...

That is great. I like the idea of melting the crayons then putting them on a rock. We did it before and heated the rocks then colored them with crayon. It was a bit hot for the boys to handle. Your rocks are beautiful by the way.

Garden State Kate said...

Thanks Heather...P loves art in any form. ;-)

Anonymous said...

I'm going to set up a rock painting session for this afternoon. Thanks for the inspiration. P's rocks look great. Does the melted crayon stay liquid for very long? Great idea to melt them in a muffin tin.

I'll follow your answer in the follow up comments. ;) I love that feature.

Garden State Kate said...

Nina- not for long..we were working in the kitchen, I just popped it back in the oven every few minutes.
It might not have taken so many turns in
the oven for us, but P kept stopping to tell me the story about her painting...then it would be solid again.lol

Anonymous said...

Yes, my chatterbox would need her muffin tin rewarmed a dozen times which wouldn't be a problem except Si wants to crawl in the stove every time I open it. sigh...

Garden State Kate said...

Nina,
I would (because I should have)
pour some boiling water into a baking pan and place muffin tin inside it as needed to warm..then you do not need to open oven.

Anonymous said...

Awesome! :)

This Girl loves to Talk said...

what a good idea.. never thought to do it that way... that will be easier for my 2 year old.

Michie said...

They look really pretty! I like that they even have names, like sunrise and sunset - that's the sign of an artist!

sarah said...

We loved painting rocks when Rose was little. We especially liked getting smooth riverstones, they ended up looking like fairy gems.

Anonymous said...

I love this project and that you melted it in the muffin tin. I think that would be much easier for my kids *grin* Can't wait to try this out!

iMother2.0 said...

great idea ..and the idea about putting the pan in warm water...I learn without having to go through the hard parts :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this twist on the popular hot rocks theme. I've been wanting to try it, but not sure about the logistics of heating the rocks. Heating the wax sounds much easier.

Robyn said...

I love this idea, looks like fun. They came out great.

Cher Mere said...

Great project. You are so creative!

Becky @ BoysRuleMyLife said...

Very cool! I really need to get back into these unplugged projects - summer has just been so busy!!! Love your stones, though! I'm a little hesitant about "glass" this week... we'll see! :)

Dana Leeds said...

I like this "twist" to the hot rocks activity. I think the color would be easier to control that way.

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My homeschool buddies and I are all posting pics of our "home schools" as part of our idea sharing.

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