I had a lot of fun with this post. It combines a wonderful book, The Garden Classroom by Cathy James, with a Montessori treasure basket and my 17-month-old granddaughter’s love of rocks.
Disclosure: I received a free copy of The Garden Classroom. All opinions are honest and my own. This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you)
Sneak Peek inside The Garden Classroom
The Garden Classroom: Hands-On Activities in Math, Science, Literacy & Art has creative outdoor garden activities for 4-8 year olds. The author, Cathy James, has a blog I’ve always loved, the popular UK-based NurtureStore.
Cathy’s book is divided into six sections:
- Let’s Grow! Garden Basics
- Play & Imagination
- Reading & Writing
- Science & Math
- Arts & Crafts
- Garden Recipes
The Garden Classroom has lots of beautiful, inviting photos. They make it a joy to leaf through the book to find creative activities for outdoor learning.
You can see a preview of the book here:
Story Stones – Farm Animal Families Treasure Basket
The activities in The Garden Classroom are designed for ages 4-8. I adapted the story stones activity for a toddler (and for my lack of drawing and painting talent). Because my granddaughter, Zoey, has loved rocks since she was a baby, I knew this would be a popular activity with her.
Farm Animal Families Story Stones Treasure Basket
Typically, the story stones are prepared using paint, permanent markers, colored pencils, or crayons along with optional clear varnish. If you follow my blog, you know that I love creating Montessori-inspired hands-on activities using printables. So I decided to use printables on rocks we found washed up on the beach.
Zoey also loves animals right now, so I made the story stones with farm animal families (5 different kinds of mother, father, and baby animals). I used the free Farm Animal Families Printables from The Pinay Homeschooler.
Attaching and sealing the printables with Outdoor Mod Podge was simple. Then I removed any tackiness by adding a layer of Hard Coat Mod Podge.
Watch our YouTube video to see how we presented the activity … and to see Zoey’s response!
Resources
Themed Treasure Baskets for Babies and Toddlers
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
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I’ve been wanting to make story stones for a long time but I’m a terrible artist so I love the idea of using printables. Thank you 🙂
What a great idea to use printable pictures for those of us not feeling artistic – ahem! : ) Thanks for linking up to the Preschool Kindergarten Community post.
I love that you made mother and baby sets!
~Lee
These are awesome! Has anyone tried them on wood blocks or anything else besides stones? Trying to think of other places to mod podge them on to!
These are wonderful! Thanks for linking up at the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop! We hope you join us next week! This post will be featured as the “most-clicked” post!
Congrats! This post had the most clicks at the Thoughtful Spot Blog Hop last week and will be featured tomorrow. Thanks for linking up Story Stones!