Little Geologist

As I was browsing around on Pinterest, I discovered a Kindergarten Science blog called Little Miss Hypothesis. The latest post was about rock collecting and sorting. My preschooler and I listened to the kids read the book "Everybody Needs a Rock" by Byrd Baylor. We decided that we needed to go rock collecting and do some sorting too. Yes! We would be geologists for the morning.

 We donned clothes that could get dirty, for we might have to sit on the ground to search for just the right rocks. We decided to walk down to the river, where we knew there were lots of great rocks. We found a couple of empty Play-Doh containers for our collection. And off we went.

Since it was cool and sprinkling outside, we choose to bring our rocks inside and use my daughter's little portable chalkboard for our classification exercises. After dumping our two containers out onto the table, Sweet Pea wanted to wash them all off.

Washing the rocks

She had lots of fun sorting the rocks first by color (light, dark, and medium) and then by size (big, small, medium) before she was ready to sort them one last time by her own criteria which we determined was "random".

Proud Little Geologist

Classifying Rocks by Size

Random sorting is serious business!

Later in the day, it was time for each of us to choose one rock that would be our own special rock. I had already selected mine in my mind - it was the first rock I picked up, which was golden in color, felt just right in my hand, and was heart-shaped. I thought it would either take Sweet Pea a long time to choose one or that she would just choose the first one she picked up. She surprised me by her quick selection. When I asked why she chose that particular rock, she said with a grin, "because it is shaped like a heart." Warm fuzzy moment for mama!

my special rock

Sweet Pea's special rock

I'm going to surprise her for Valentine's Day with a special little box where she can keep her rock. Everyone knows that geologists are big softies at heart!