If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Kids love to paint especially when it is something other than paper. Rock crafts can be made into many things from pet rocks to stepping stones and even garden markers. Materials needed for this activity are rocks of various shapes and sizes, tempura paint, paint brushes. Optional materials include glue, permanent markers, and googely eyes.If you have access to rocks outside, let the children pick their own. You can tell them to find rocks that they think have a special shape or would look good as a certain animal or bug (lady bugs and frogs are popular choices). If you are going to be making something larger like a stepping stone, garden stone, or vegetable marker, you can go to your local gardening or landscaping supply store. Older children may like the added challenge of finding many small rocks and piecing them together to make a creature or object. If you do not have glue that is strong enough to hold rocks together clay will work as an adhesive too. With various shaped rocks you can build a car using an oblong rock for the body and four round rocks for the wheels.Let the children paint their creations and let dry thoroughly. You should put the children

Instead of keeping a journal or starting a scrap book a child may be interested in making their own memory jar from the summer. If all the memories will not fit into one jar they may want to make several for special days or outings that happened during the summer break.What you will need is a large clear glass jar with a lid. This can be used from an empty pickle jar or other food container that is empty and has been cleaned out. If you are having trouble getting the entire label off, you can use nail polish remover to dissolve the glue and paper that is still stuck.Have the child collect small mementos or other meaningful objects that will fit inside a jar. They can be photographs, a special rock found, something they made, a friendship bracelet, the options are really only limited to their imagination. A good example for a day trip memory jar is one from the beach. Fill the bottom part of the jar with sand or pebbles that were collected from the beach, add in some shells and other interesting finds. Take a picture of your child at the beach and they can use it as a backdrop for the items.As time goes on the children may want to open their jars, and rearrange them and as long as they are careful with the glass that is fine. Put up a shelf in their room and they can have a collection of memory jars. Put a label on the top of the jar with the date or date range and the location of where the items were collected. These can be kept for years as a lasting reminder of the fun they had growing up and going to special places with mom and dad.