Rocks

 Coming up with an art project for rocks was a little tricky for us.  Out of last minute desperation we came up with the following project that was a huge success.

We decided to make rock collections with the children.  Each child had three "rocks" glued on to a sheet of construction paper for their collection. 

We showed pictures of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and pointed out how sedimentary rocks were made of layers, which looked like stripes; and how metamorphic rocks were made out of fragments which look like dots.  Then we introduced the pastel chalks and told the class that chalk was even made from a rock.

The children were shown how to use the chalks and how they could make stripes and dots.  Then they were shown how they could rub the colors together to fill in their rock.

When they were finished, most children added the types of erosion we had talked about.  You can see water, wind and tree roots depicted in many of their projects.

We sprayed the pictures with hairspray to help set the chalk pastels.