Story Stones and Painted Rocks
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I love that something as natural as a rock can been turned into something magical with just a little paint. Story stones and painted rocks are a great way to foster storytelling, creative play and conversations with your child.
I started my stone painting with a set just like this rainbow train set. My son was just starting to learn his colors and I decided to combine his two favorite things at the time…rocks and trains. These trains went with us everywhere. They were especially perfect as entertainment while we were at restaurants.
There’s no exact way to use story stones. The idea is to help your child with imaginative play or encourage storytelling prompted by the images. For children who are just developing their vocabulary, have them select a stone and then incorporate it into a story you are telling. You can also ask them simple questions about the stones and what may happen next in the story.
In addition to storytelling, painted rocks are wonderful for igniting ideas for creative drawings. Have your child select one or several stones to use as prompts to begin their drawing.
For the story stones and painted rocks that I create I love using bright acrylic paints. And I love finding multiple uses for them. I often paint the back of the stones a solid color so that they can be used for additional play and even color recognition and matching. Since the rocks I use are smaller in size, I tend to use very small paint brushes for details.
There’s an endless amount of themes and possibilities when it comes to story stones. If you have some ideas in mind, but you’re not sure if you’re up for painting them yourself, I love to create custom sets for customers. You can message me directly from my ETSY shop.
Here are a few more ways I’ve used painted rocks and story stones:
Come visit the Thrive 360 Living ETSY shop for more ideas or to purchase a set of your own. If it’s just smooth flat stones that you need to create your own, I have those as well!
