School is almost out and if you have a little one who is leaving the early school days behind for summer, or maybe you have preschoolers at home, keeping kids learning during the long days of summer is important. What is really important is keeping the learning fun for these little ones. Kids are expected to read and spell at a much younger age these days, in addition to just knowing the alphabet. That is why you will love this painted rocks craft. ABC Letter Rocks are an easy craft to make at home and will be hours of learning fun this summer. Keep these alphabet painted rocks in the house, use them in the sand box, or pack them in your beach bag to take with you to the beach!
Painted Rocks Make Learning Fun: How To Make ABC Letter Stones
Supplies:
- Smooth Rocks
- Acrylic Paint
- Fine Tip Paint Brushes
- Newspaper
How To Paint Rocks
You can start this project with a good, old fashion rock hunt! My kids love to look for pretty rocks. I used a bunch of rocks from our rock collection that were already polished. I don’t even know where they came from. You don’t have to use polished rocks though. Regular rocks will do just fine. A smooth surface will make painting easier. As far as sizing, small rocks, about the size of a half dollar, are pretty perfect.
Make sure your rocks are clean. Wash them with warm water and soap to remove any dirt. Rinse and dry throughly before painting.
Lay out a newspaper or paper towel to protect your work surface. Then begin laying your rocks out to decide which letters will go on which rocks.
Carefully begin painting your letters on each rock. I did them free hand. I have preschoolers so I made the painted rocks myself for them to play with afterwards. If your kids are old enough, painting on the rocks themselves will be a fun craft.
Acrylic paint works well on rocks. It goes on smoothly and dries quickly. Apply two coats of paint to each letter to get a nice, vibrant color. Make sure to let the paint dry between coats. By the time you are down painting the alphabet once, it will probably be dry and ready for a second coat.
After the letters have dried, go back and with contrasting colors add decorative dots and stripes to each rock.
Be as creative as you want to be with these painted rock crafts! The rocks can have as little or as much decor as you like. Just remember that the goal is to help teach kids their letters so you don’t want to distract from the letters too much.
If you want, you can paint the upper case letter on one side of the stone and the lower case on the opposite side.
Ways To Play With ABC Letter Rocks
The kids will have lots of fun playing with their painted rocks. Here are some ideas to get them started:
- letter recognition games
- organizing the letters in order
- sorting all capitals or all lowercase
- spelling simple words
- reading short messages you write
- matching a painted letter stone to an object that starts with that sound
- filling in the blank (For example, put out the painted rock letter C and T and leave a space between them and see if your child can pick a letter that works there.)
- making as many words as possible (For example, put out the letter rocks A and T and see how many words they can make by adding different letters to the beginning.)
I hope your children enjoy making and playing with their ABC letter rocks. Did they enjoy learning how to paint rocks? I’d love to see how your painted rocks come out! Tag us @FamilyFocusBlog or #FamilyFocusBlog on social media if you’d like to share!
I have also included some more fun ideas for ways that kids can paint stones for fun craft projects.
More Painted Rock Ideas: