Sensory Stone play should be part of any child’s development, as it encourages new experiences involving the senses. Every stone play offers an opportunity for kids to better understand their shapes through play and mark making.
This game enables children to experiment with shapes and patterns while also exploring how to match and find symmetries. In this list, you’ll find some interesting stone activities that your kids can play.
1. Alphabet Rocks
To allow your children to practice their ABCs, you can make them alphabet rocks. You can paint the rocks with acrylic paint or heat emboss them.
Either way, you can put an uppercase letter on the front and the lowercase letter on the back. If you have additional rocks, you can also repeat this method using numbers.
2. Cleaning the rocks
When your child cleans rocks, the activity holds their attention for longer than other sensory stone game. The best thing about it is that you can keep your kids occupied without the need of much input from you.
You also do not to do anything to prepare for the game no preparations needed. It would also not create a large mess. In this game all you need is a paintbrush, water, shaving foam, rocks, and a container in which to put your materials.
Let your child start painting the rocks using shaving foam. Then, let them mix and swirl the rocks. In here, your kids will discover the stickiness of the foam and realize that they need a lot more than just foam to clean the rocks. Allow them then to clean the rocks by adding water. Your children will love seeing the water transform from clear to murky.
3. Draw faces
It’s a simple sensory stone play for kids. All you need is to gather some rocks and paint. From there, your kids can draw one facial feature on a rock. They can make eyes, nose or mouth in various expressions.
After finishing creating faces, they can share why they did it. You and your kids can talk about what the emotions they created.
This type of game allows your kids to explore their emotional intelligence, which is why it’s perfect for preschoolers.
4. Make crystallized beach rocks
In here, you’ll need smooth rocks, borax, hot water, plastic containers, spoon, droppers, and watercolors. Fill a jar with hot water and add borax. Stir the mixture until the borax dissolves. Place the rock in the borax-water and let it stay overnight.
The next morning, your kids can color the rock using a medicine dropper. They can use various colors or paint the rocks in stripes using a paintbrush. Whatever they want to do with the rocks, let them use their imagination.
While they play these sensory stone activities, your kids would greatly enjoy it if they were wearing a teething necklace. It’s especially true if they’re in the teething stage. This phase of their lives is associated with pain. You can relieve their pain by using a Baltic wonder teething necklaces for babies have natural anti-inflammatory properties.
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
ARGH! Wish this article had been around when my son, now 21, was diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder! There was more large motor activities involved, and for fine motor skills, only printing and writing. The OT at his school did not really believe in SID (he was older), so my son had handwriting lessons weekly for four years, lol! His teachers all commented how lovely his papers were to read, so legible. Back to your stone activities…I have to say that not only did you select excellent activities for sensory improvement and awareness, but those of us who still have some kid in us would enjoy doing these things as well. I guess I have some extra plans for the weekend!????Thanks for sharing! Annie, the Sensorial Mom✌????️????
It’s funny but kids is more attracted to weird things. They actually hate sometimes playing with the real toys you buy in store. If they saw something like thrash like material they love to play with it. Stones are often one of the best kind of play thing for them. If you dress it a little it’s a treasure for kids.
This is a great idea. We live near a pebble beach and it never occurred to me that we could do a lot of things with the pebbles and stones we find there. Thanks for sharing.