Nature in Action and story stones

Have you ever watched a caterpillar actually go through all the cycles until it is a butterfly or moth?  We were fortunate to do that this month:

Day 1: James' caterpillar trap

Day 1: Caterpillar caught

Day 2: he started doing this

Day 2: he kept at it

Day 3: still working first thing in the morning

Day 3: 1/2 hour later

Day 3: 1 hour later

Day 4: first thing in the morning 

Day 4: All finished

About 20 days later

A brown moth!

Setting him free

After seeing the fun in real life I decided to help the kids make something to remember "buddy."  Yes, my kids named it as they do everything. I have been wanting to do story stones for a long time as well as painting on rocks with crayons.  So we tried both out at the same time.

I first saw the idea of story stones at Childhood 101.  She found the idea elsewhere.  Story stones are a way for children to tell a story through looking at pictures on the stones to inspire ideas.  Simple ideas are best.  When I saw this idea I thought it would be fun to make story stones from books or things we had done so the kids could remember and tell the story using the stones in their own way.

Painting on rocks with crayons is super easy.  All you need to do is gather stones, wash them, put them in a 350 degree oven on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes.   While they are "cooking" peel the wrapper off off the crayons you want to use.  Once the rocks are hot and ready, use a hot pad (they are very hot) to transfer them to a protected table.  Make sure your children understand not to touch.  Then let them see what happens when the crayon touches the rock.

a little like tall painting (maybe next time we will have to find tall rocks to do this with.

Ally making mandalas

Ally liked blowing the puddles of crayon wax to make a cool effect

I didn't want to force the kids into doing something that was my idea so I made the butterfly cycle for my stones as they started on their own thing (drawing with melted crayon is hard.  Next time I will stick to abstract art!)  Funny that James' first stone he did was a butterfly and then when he saw me doing the whole cycle on mine he had to do the same.

My moth life cycle (I am not an artist so don't judge) --

James' butterfly life cycle --

Our mandalas --

Our abstract stones --

My Notes:

• The mandalas turned out the prettiest of all of them  -- my suggestion if you do this at home is to work on mandalas or abstract type art, but again, just letting your kids explore themselves is best of all.  

• We kept our rocks in the oven after the 15 minutes and just took one for each of us out at a time.  I did turn the oven off, but it stayed hot enough for us to work for about 30-40 minutes.  

• My kids did want to touch the rocks and after a couple "ow" screams they started using an oven mitt in their non writing hand.  They felt safer that way.  

• My baby woke up at the end of the project and wanted to do it.  She did just fine, but the rocks were not as hot at the end.  I think braving it with little ones is ok.  I touched my rocks too and it isn't that hot that they get burn marks or anything.  They learn fast just not to touch the rocks.  

Vote for me daily at TopMommyBlogs.Com @ Top Mommy Blogs