# Hot Rock Art: Rock People with Feelings
> Color oven-warmed rocks with crayons that melt into vibrant colors. Then build a rock person with googly eyes, feathers and play dough, and change its mouth to show happy, sad, worried and angry faces.
- URL: https://www.funlittles.com/rock-art/
- Ages: 4–8 yrs · Difficulty: medium · Mess: medium
- Time: prep 20 min, activity 30 min
- Works for: one-on-one, small group · one batch serves about 1 kids
- Skills: emotions, social-emotional, fine-motor, art, dramatic-play, nature-exploration
- Cautions: wheat-gluten, ingestion-risk

## Materials (one batch)
- 6 piece Smooth rocks (various shapes)
- Crayons, paper peeled off
- 2 piece Googly eyes
- 2 piece Craft feathers
- 1 piece Beads or pom poms
- Play dough
- 1 piece Oven (household)
- 1 piece Baking sheet (household)
- 1 piece Oven mitts (household)

## Substitutions
- Instead of beads: Pom poms (The post lists pom poms or beads for features like the nose.)

## Safety
- Adult does all oven work. The rocks are heated at 350F for 15 minutes and come out very hot. Use oven mitts and set the rocks on a heat-safe surface.
- Hot rocks can burn. Give kids long crayons so their fingers stay away from the rock, and supervise the whole coloring time.
- Let the rocks cool completely before kids handle them to build the rock person.
- Googly eyes, beads and pom poms are small parts and a choking hazard. Supervise closely, especially near younger siblings.
- Store-bought play dough usually contains wheat. Check the label for kids with wheat or gluten allergies.

## Before you start
- Collect rocks in different shapes and sizes. A nature walk or beach trip works.
- Peel the paper off a few long crayons and have them handy.

## Steps
1. Adult: warm the rocks in the oven for 15 minutes at 350F.
2. Adult: take out the hot rocks with oven mitts and set them on a heat-safe surface.
3. Hold a long peeled crayon and color the hot rocks. Watch the crayon melt into bright colors.
4. Let the colored rocks cool completely.
5. Arrange the rocks into a person: a head, a body, two arms and two legs.
6. Add googly eyes, a bead nose, play dough ears and a play dough smile, and feathers for hair. Now you have a happy rock guy.
7. Turn the smile upside down to make a sad rock guy.
8. Make the mouth a straight line for a worried rock guy.
9. Add play dough eyebrows and change the mouth to make an angry rock guy.
10. Tell why the rock guy feels happy, sad, worried or angry.

## Tips
- Once we started coloring, the crayons melted right in front of us and the colors were supremely vibrant.
- I made sure we had long crayons to avoid any accidental touches on the hot rocks.
- Ask your child to show you a sad, worried or angry rock guy. Big A turned the smile upside down right away, and I helped her with the angry face.
- Have kids tell you why the rock guy is happy, sad, worried or angry. They have to come up with situations that might make a person feel that way, and it gets their imagination rolling.

## The original post by TurkeyMom (2012)

We love to collect “woks” here. I mean rocks. How cute is it to hear a baby pronounce rocks as woks? When we came back from our trip to a local rock beach, we literally had tons of rocks and clam shells in a bucket. Every little guy in the bucket was carefully chosen. There were some rigorous tests those rocks and shells had to pass to be the “chosen one”. With those rocks, I jumped on the” Hot Rocks project “bandwagon and warmed them up in my oven for 15 minutes at 350F. Big A : What? You are cooking the rocks? Are you gonna feed them to us?( with a sarcastic smile.) Mom: Haaaaa (evil grin) Yesssss. Big A: Noooooo. Kids don’t eat rocks. Mom: You sure are gonna eat one today. It will make you healthy. Big A (still not buying it) But mommmm, I can’t bite the rocks. My teeth will break. Mom decides it is a good time to stop and we both end up laughing.

1. Rocks
2. crayons
3. Googly eyes
4. Feathers
5. pom poms/beads
6. play doh

While the rocks were warming up, we peeled the paper off a few crayons and had them handy. Rocks come out of the oven and we get in action. Once we started coloring, the crayons started melting right in front of us and the colors were supremely vibrant. I made sure we had long crayons to avoid any accidental touches. So much for my idea, Big A had fun playing “ Oh My God hot hot hot hot hot” game all through the coloring process. Here are our colorful rocks.

 After the rocks were all dressed up, we made a person out of the rocks. With Googly eyes, bead, feathers and ubiquitous play doh we ended up with a happy rock guy. Big A is good at reading people’s emotions. Immediately she said “this rock guy is happy”. “Can you show me a sad rock guy?” I had to ask her. She immediately turned the smile upside and down and here is our sad rock guy.

 Worried rock guy was next with a straight line mouth.

 I helped her with the angry face.

 Here we are- proved that rocks could have emotions too. Just a few craft supplies needed though! She continued petting her new rock friend and started dramatic play with animals, rock guy, castle and dragons. Notes to myself: I'll have her tell me why the rock guy is happy, sad, worried and angry. This will get her imagination rolling as she needs to come with situations that might make a person feel the way they feel. **Linked up on** [No time for flash cards](http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/)
Made by little hands