Brainstorm in Bloom: Rockin' Letter R (Alphabet ~ Single Stem Post)

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Rockin' Letter R (Alphabet ~ Single Stem Post)

We had a great time with rocks and rockets for the letter R! I actually had another letter planned but we went on a great hike with some cool rocks and after telling them a million times to stop shoving rocks in their pockets and them catching me sliding rocks in my pocket I decided we better collect away and do the Rockin’ letter R! We had fun melting crayons on hot rocks, hammering rocks, making new rocks, and creating & launching rockets!

For the rest of the Alphabet, go HERE!

Enjoy this
Rockin’ R for
(Seedlings ~ preschool age)...

What we did for the Rockin’ Letter R?...

Alphabet Wall:
Rocks on the R ~ After hammering bigger rocks into smaller rocks (see below) we glued the small rocks on our R.

Books:

*Read Rosie Rabbit’s Radish (Alpha Tales book) and The QR Book (Bob Book Pre-Reader)

*Read some rock books ~ we got three other books but they were way above their level so we just looked through them. Rocks by Robin Nelson was just right and had some cool pics as well!

*Read some rocket books ~ Rocket Town by Bob Logan (the boys loved this one – cool illustrations!) and If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty.

Art/Crafts:

*Rubber band painting ~ I saw this idea featured in Make andTakes and had to try it. The boys thought it was pretty cool. Just wrap some rubber bands around the end of a pencil or chop stick with another rubber band and cut the ends. Then paint away!

*Hot Rock Crayon Melt ~ we put the rocks on a cardboard piece with tin foil and put those on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes. We used some of our peeled crayons and melted them on the rocks. All they need to do is touch the crayons to the rocks and melt away! Don’t forget to let them know that the rocks are very hot and only to touch the crayon to the rocks – not fingers! See full instructions here.

*Make Rocks ~ we used our small rock pieces from Rock Hammering (see below) to make bigger rocks but it didn’t turn out. We used the directions from Education.com but might try glue instead of sugar water next time. Maybe they just need to sit longer.

Activities:

*Rock collecting, washing and hammering ~ the boys were finally encouraged to fill their pockets with rocks! Actually I love the different colors and shapes in rocks and am constantly collecting them myself so I take the blame when rocks go through the washing machine! Anyhow, we had fun collecting, washing and hammering. For the washing I gave them a bowl of water, some paint brushes and eye droppers and they got right to work checking out the changes when the rocks were wet. For the hammering I tried to get them to put my shop goggles on but they didn’t like them – thankfully Firefly (3 yr old) had a good idea with the swim goggles and it gave me a good giggle. Then after some instructions they began hammering. I think Roly Poly (4 yr old) could have done this forever! You could wrap the rocks in a towel and let them hammer them that way if you are nervous about small pieces flying.

*Rocket Launching ~ we made rockets and then tried all sorts of ways to launch them. The favorite was by blowing them with a straw. Hornet (6 yr old) also made the little boys a surprise rocket out of a cardboard box.