Rocking It: Easy Activity for a Laid Back Day

At Costco a few weeks back we found a cool little painted rock, and by "we" I of course mean a few of my kids. I saw said rock but didn't care enough about it to even register that it was a thing. My boys, however, excitedly picked it and found a magically handwritten note glued to the underside telling us we could keep it or rehide it. Being the fun mom I am, I suggested hiding it right back where we found it, but the boys so adamantly insisted that it was pocketed and admired throughout the store.

A few days later, in desperation for a time-filling, cheap, all-inclusive, anti-fighting activity I remembered this very special rock and decided that not only were we going to hide it, but we were going to make some of our own.

I'm not sure who came up with this painting rock thing, but I'm pretty sure it was a mom at the end of summer break.

So here's the breakdown on this surprisingly fun and time consuming activity:

Go on a rock hunt. They can be fun shaped ones like a heart or square or be super flat or they can just be rocks that look like rocks. Whatever.
Paint the rocks. We used the assorted paints in my paint box, so mostly acrylic but there may or may not been some fabric paint thrown in there too.
Write a little note for the bottom of the rock with an explanation. I hand wrote that tiny note 11 times because my dang printer is on strike, but printing would have been amazing.
We then Mod Podged the note to the underside of the rock and then mod podged the entire rock to protect our awesome paint jobs.
Go hide your rocks. You don't really want to HIDE them unless you don't want anyone to ever find them, but you want to place them in fun spots.

Did you know there are Facebook groups for this? Just type in your city followed by the word Rocks.

We actually joined our city rock group, snapped a pic of our 11 masterpieces and then told the group to go find them at the local park where we just hid them.

We went back to the park a few days later to check up on our little painted beauties. On the way we all guessed how many were left. I pretty much thought they'd all still be there but there was only 1 not taken. The 5 year old was thrilled to find his baby and decided he needed to keep it. Great.

This was a much more successful activity than the letter stickers I pulled out a few weeks earlier.