This pet rock craft for kids is inspired by the children’s book, Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor. It’s a fun activity that combines creativity and the outdoors with a classic children’s book!
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In our most recent kindergarten after school class the kids created their very own pet rocks and even made homes for them! (This post contains affiliate links.)
Pet Rocks and Pet Rock Homes
Setting Up the Activity
We started the activity by reading the book, Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor. (If you haven’t yet read this book, I strongly encourage you to check it out from the library or buy your own copy. It’s one of my favorites and makes a great addition to any unit on the outdoors or geology!) In this fictional story, a child (who is also an avid rock collector) shares her ten rules for finding the perfect rock.
After reading the book we discussed the rules the character shared in the story and talked about if we agreed or disagreed with any of them. We then came up with even more rules on our own for the finding the perfect rock.
Once we had finished discussing the story, we went on our very own rock hunt to find our perfect rocks! (If the area you are doing this activity in doesn’t have a large amount of rocks, you can scatter or hide a bunch of rocks ahead of time for the children to choose from.)
Creating Pet Rocks and Pet Rock Houses
We brought our rocks inside and decided to transform them into pet rocks!
We started by painting our rocks with tempera paint (this is my favorite tempera paint) and set them aside to dry on a paper plate.
While the rocks were drying, we made homes for our pet rocks using berry baskets (similar to these). We decorated the berry baskets with various craft materials like pompoms, yarn, foam stickers (which we received for free from Craftprojectideas.com), sequins, felt scraps and construction paper to create cozy homes for our pets.
Once the painted rocks had dried, we decorated them with google eyes, pipe cleaners, and other craft materials. (Be sure to use a strong glue like Tacky Glue. It dries more quickly and the craft materials are less likely to fall off as they’re drying.)
The kids loved playing with their newly created pet rocks and were so excited to bring them home to share with their families!
Be sure to check out STEAM Kids book and ebook for even more creative STEM and STEAM ideas!