Organizing Rock Collections

You can make your own rock collection by selecting one of your best rocks from each pile of different rocks or choose ones that you like best for your own special reason. If you went on a rock hunt around your home and city and like doing that you might become a Geologist (scientist) or a rockhound (amateur) when you grow up.

Have family members find you egg cartons. Put your name on the top of the carton. In each of the compartments of the carton place one of your best specimens from each pile. You could make a collection of different rock specimens in on carton and in another, rocks that you like the best, like the most beautiful, your first rock, on that you purchased. You should mark your favorite carton with a smiley face so you can pick it up often to look at and admire your rocks.

Rocks Have Properties ~ Continued

Softness or hardness, shapes 

Some rocks are softer than others. Find out which is the softest or hardest. You can do this by taking your rocks out to the sidewalk. Take one rock and make a mark with it on the sidewalk. Soft rocks will leave a mark, hard rocks will not. After making a mark, place the rock that made it at the end of its mark so you can remember which rock you used. The rock making the biggest mark is the softest and the rock that made hardly a mark is the hardest.

Rocks have different shapes--flat, round, square, rectangle, ball, weird, triangle, maybe more. Make a pile for each shape. You can also make a human shape using rocks laid on the sidewalk. Give it hands, arms, head, legs, feet and body made with rocks. Make a cat or dog. Take a picture of your creation to share with friends.

Do you have rocks that are very smooth and rounded? Make a pile of these. They are probably river rocks and being in a river allowed the rocks to be moved and tumbled as they moved in the water. Rocks on the beach look this way, too, as the tide rolls them over and over and knocks off the rough edges. Collect some smooth rocks the next time you go to the beach.

Round smooth rocks are perfect for painting. Have mom or dad purchase acrylic paints in four to five different colors. You choose. You can paint your rocks to look like people, animals, plants, monsters, or just rocks.

Rocks Have Properties

Color, reaction to being hit together, reaction to a mild acid.
You have put the rocks that are alike in separate piles. Tell what you know about rocks in each pile. Point or pick up one of the rocks you will talk about. Do you know the rock’s name such as brick? What are they used for? What color are they? Some rocks have two colors in them. Do you have any of those? Go through all of your piles of rocks and point out the colors and tell what you think the rocks are used for.

In Texas, where we live, one finds many rocks called flint or chert and when you hit two rocks together you have a burned smell coming from the two rocks. Do you have flint?

Limestone is a common in Texas, too. You might drop a limestone rock in vinegar and see that bubbles form. Much limestone is created from the bodies of shelled animals that died millions of years ago. Do you have limestone?

While you have the vinegar out try it on rocks you think are different from limestone. Do any other rocks give off bubbles in vinegar? Vinegar is an acid that is good to use in this experiment. It is safe because you can eat it. The rocks that bubble have a substance in them or on them that reacts with vinegar. The proof is in the bubbles.

Washing Dirty Rocks

This is the time to talk about how important washing hands is because they get dirty, too.

To prepare the rocks for study, they must first be washed. Provide the children with a pail or plastic pan, several small brushes like toothbrushes, and some drying towels. Discuss the best place to wash the rocks. Outdoors is good! When ready, fill the pan/bucket with warm water and add soap. Moving to the washing area, children should proceed to wash each rock, making them very clean. Washed rocks are placed on the drying towels and left for an hour to dry. If you want, you can show them on the clock when to check to see if drying is finished. When the rocks are dry bring them to your science area for later study.

A good check on the washing success is to pour the wash water into a clear gallon container. Sediment from the rocks, as dirt, will settle to the bottom of the jar. Look at the small rocks and sand. Can you tell which rocks were the dirtiest and shed the most particles. The breaking down of rocks is called Weathering. What color was the most common sand and what color was the water? Finally, place the jar out of the way and leave it a couple of days for everything to settle out. If you had a million years of collecting dirt and sand, and that sediment was buried under even more sediment, compressing it, it could form new rock, maybe Sandstone.

Next. Doing things with and studying rocks

Bring your collection of rocks out from the washing. Enough rocks is more than 100 clean and BEAUTIFUL rocks. Lay them out so you can see all the rocks. First put all rocks that look alike together. Are they all the same kind of rocks? Different ones should have their own piles. If you want to remember which pile is which, number paper plates 1 –10. Then, have a scribe keep a notebook, noting the plate numbers and the observations you made.

Rocks

Complimentary Reading

Everybody Needs A Rock by Byrd Baylor, If You Find a Rock by Peggy Christian

Physical Science – Properties of Matter
Earth Science – Earth materials we use
Start. Collecting Rocks: an outdoor experience

You need to help your child collect rocks--Lots of Rocks--of all shapes and sizes. They can come from every place imaginable: the local hardware store, grandpa’s junk collection, parking lots, mom’s junk drawer, and even from the next-door neighbor’s yard (with permission, of course). Everyone can help but it must be the child (or children) who organizes and carries out the majority of the finding. Get neighbors and relatives to help.

You should know that some rocks are made by people and are used for many important jobs. Bricks, tiles, clay pots, cement, asphalt, and slag are some groups of Manufactured Rocks. The other group of rocks are what is called Natural Rocks, rocks made in/by nature. These rocks are broken down over time by natural forces. Earthquakes, rivers, glaciers and wind are forces that make little rocks out of big ones.

The Bread Project & A Peppered Finger

This time of the Coronavirus is a good opportunity to share science information with our children. Let’s try a couple of science experiments about one safety concern, dirty hands.  If you are looking for further guidance on how to talk with children about COVID-19, this article might be helpful click here

The medical world says that the one most important thing to do, so you will not get sick as easily, is hand washing. Another is to not touch possibly contaminated surfaces if you can avoid it. So, let’s set up a simple experiment to see what is on our hands that could cause sickness.  Following that, let's try another simple experiment that shows us the importance of using soap!