R is for Rock

Rocks are so simple and so fun, are they not?  Especially my little one cannot seem to get his hands on enough rocks.  He always seems to be filling his hands and his pockets with them.  So, it wasn't hard to really come up with much to make it an appealing week!  They kind of hold their own appeal, at least for my boys.  

Isaiah is an observer and a details kid, so we did a lot of observing and classifying.  Isaiah likes anything about being a detective, so he fancied himself a rock detective for the week.

When we went on a walk to find and collect rocks, I had to cut them off as the bag I was carrying was about to rip from all the rocks they found that just "had to" come home with us.

Now, I grew up on a farm, so I grew up playing in dirt, but there is something about city dirt and grime that kind of just grosses me out.  Add to that the fact that litter is a big problem here, so there is often garbage laying around even in the midst of what would be a nice open green space.  So, just as a matter of practicality, I was pretty determined to wash any and all rocks that were going to be brought into the house.  But, instead of washing them myself, we set up a big bucket of sudsy water, and it turned out to be Zeke's favorite activity of the week.  (It's possible I was just being a little crazy, but I did actually rinse and then soak the rocks in bleach water first.)  I gave the boys sponges and old toothbrushes, and Zeke asked to wash rocks EVERY day, multiple times a day. 

Actually, once I brought the rocks in the house, I set up a bin for Zeke for washing and polishing, which I failed to get a picture of, and I had a smaller container of water, some rags, a toothbrush, and some baking soda.  The boys used the baking soda and water to polish rocks.

They had each picked out one large rock on our rock collecting walk, and I let them paint them.

 I also had a set of smaller rocks from awhile ago that I had written the letter of the alphabet on, so I pulled those out and an alphabet printable for him to match up the letters (both capitals, so a simple matching), which he also loved.