Rocks and Crystals - 3 to 7 August

Day 5 - Rocks and Crystals - Stories

 

In South Lanarkshire they ended up stuck indoors due to heavy rain but wanted to create a story about animals in the zoo.

In East Renfrewshire it was their last day with Virtual Nature School before school next week. The day saw them making a stone character using some crystals that were like diamonds. They were able to write and say what his character was called, where he lived and what he was like.

In Falkirk they had a wee tea party with candy floss mini muffins and caterpillar cake to celebrate the end of their time together with Virtual Nature School. They drew a memory rock and made place settings with all their favourite rocks. 

In Edinburgh, after watching today's provocation, they set up their art station and enjoyed painting rocks whilst eating cherries - which they found had stones in them! While waiting for their rock characters to dry they presented their collection out in the garden.

In Stirling rock cakes and a rock museum were on the cards today!

Day 4 - Rocks and Crystals - Playing games

It's play time! There are so many opportunities to make and play traditional games using stones as well as developing counting skills, shapes and rules so today we're thinking all about the game we could play using stones. We thought about using soft stones to map out a hopscotch game on the pavement or decorating stones and using them as game pieces in a board game. Let's have a look at what you came up with.

In South Lanarkshire this lot were having great fun with hopscotch in the garden and even made a bit more rock art of their toy dinosaur!

Also in Lanarkshire they were busy having fun in the garden today by making their own hopscotch.

In Stirling they had a couple of games on the go today. Firstly they played tower topple following on from tower building yesterday before moving on to hopscotch - well done guys!

 Day 3 - Rocks and Crystals - Making towers

So far we've carried out our rocks and crystals investigation by laying stones flat on the ground to make art. Today however, we're wondering what would happen if we began working on going up and thought about who could make the tallest tower. We want you to think about how you would measure the height of your tower. You could count the number of stones or measure it with a tape measure. You'll also need to think about how you are going to balance your tower and make sure it's not wobbly. Which stones will you choose to make your tower? We've also let you the challenge of seeing if you can create your own crystals! Lets see what you got up to today.

In South Lanarkshire they enjoyed building a bridge this morning by finding good flat stones. Lots of trial and error was needed when balancing the stones. They had some chats about different tower and bridges around the world before putting all the stones back where we found them.

Elsewhere they enjoyed finding the perfect stones from garden to build a tower. The wind blew it over quite a few times but they were quite happy starting again to build it!

Still in South Lanarkshire they've had fun with rocks over the past few days and have even been making their own crystals!

This lot had a great mornings fun at Doune Duck Ponds building towers, getting wet and throwing stones in the pond.

Out in Fife they talked about the sizes and shapes of the stones when they built their tower. They needed to explore balancing and stability in order for it to stay standing.

Day 2 - Rocks and Crystals - Making art with stones

Today we've been thinking about how we can create art using stones. We thought we could do this by collecting some stones to create some transient art. This involves placing stones in different shapes and patterns without gluing them down. We can do this on the ground, by securing them in sand or even just arranging on a piece of paper. We also thought about looking really closely at stones with a magnifying glass to find colours and patterns inside the rock itself which might look like art. We could collect different pretty stones and include them in a homemade museum!

In South Lanarkshire they made a bit of a mash up with last weeks topic by creating some transient art of a kite!

In East Renfrewshire they sorted their collection of rocks before counting them - he has 25 so far including a couple of fossils!

In Falkirk they were busy making all kinds of art with stones and other things they've been able to find.

They were busy in Glasgow this morning sourcing and cleaning rocks for their museum.

They found lots of rocks and shells while walking on Orkney, and used a paintbrush to clean them up!

 This lot from Edinburgh were inspired by today's provocation and ventured out in the cold, pouring rain to explore the surrounding area and managed to gather natural items to create a masterpiece! It is a picture of a forest with a path and a pond, and also a few leafy clouds in the sky.

In Stirling they weren't so keen on making art but they loved making diggers and caterpillars!

Day 1 - Rocks and Crystals - Collecting

This week we're going to investigate all sorts of rocks and crystals and to start with, we're going to need to collect some stones. We were wondering how many types of stones you would be able to find near your home.

In South Lanarkshire their stone hunt led to a conversation about how roads were constructed many years ago. They were looking on the paths and even in the water!

In Falkirk they've been loving the rock and crystal enquiry! They really wanted to share a picture of their extremely impressive collection!

Meanwhile in Edinburgh, after watching the first provocation video of the week they got ready to explore it! They gathered a few rocks from their huge beach treasures collection, added a few rocks from the garden and created a mini museum for all their dolls. They also discovered dads impressive collection of minerals and they decided investigate!

In Dundee they have quite the collection already!

In Stirling they learned that stones come in all shapes and sizes. They tried throwing and collecting from the paths and the rivers as well as cleaning them and then sorting all the different shapes, sizes and colours.