Welcome to the fist installment of my “Un-Toy Friday” series. I’m excited about a new weekly series that I’m sure you’ll love! What exactly will these posts entail, you ask? Simple: They will highlight simple fun.

My
goal with these posts is to inspire creative play with non-traditional
materials. Maybe that’s something you already to regularly with your
munchkins. Or maybe your kids have a difficult time with creative play.
Whatever situation you find yourself in, I hope these ideas inspire you
to offer your kids simple, creative opportunities for play!

Here are some rules I plan to stick by:

No “toys” Allowed (meaning no items that would be sold in the “toy” section of a store). We are going for creativity here 🙂

The posts may be round-ups (a gathering of many great ideas from around the web),
or a single feature of one activity/material.

The play must be simple. No elaborate set-ups or crazy materials. Just stuff you can find laying around most houses.

Lastly-
There will be no judgment. Whether you plan on “un-toying” once a week,
or if you are just curious but don’t have the time to implement these
activities right now…I hope this will be an encouraging place free of
guilt and negativity. I am no super-mom and I know we are all just doing
the best we can with the time and resources we have available.

I hope you’ll stick around for awhile! I have so much planned and I can’t wait to share some new ideas with you all.

On to today’s post:

Today’s un-toy  ROCKS ;-). Literally, just plain old rocks. I was led to the idea because my oldest munchkin has been asking for rocks as he plays with his tractor toys. He can sit forever and make mountains and move them around from place to place. I knew there had to be other ways to incorporate rocks into playtime.

We keep a container of clean river rocks in the house and pull them out whenever the kids want to play construction zone. It’s a super simple way to keep them busy with their tractors! 

1. My Nearest and Dearest Set out a small bowl of rocks for her little ones to arrange into pictures. How imaginative!

2. Sugar Aunts Combines rocks with play dough. Such a simple idea that invites further exploration of texture and weight of the two elements. 
3. Child Care Land Made rock dominoes. This is a great way to practice early math skills like matching and color identification! 


4. Thrive 360  Created these fun rock stamps! What a fun way to make art 🙂

5. If you don’t have any rocks laying around, fear not because you can always make these awesome Treasure Rocks (with a hidden surprise in each one!)
Like these ideas? Looking for more ways to incorporate rocks into play? Follow me on Pinterest where I have a board dedicated to playing with Rocks!


And don’t forget to leave me a comment to share any other ways you use rocks in play activities! I love hearing your creative ideas too!

**BONUS ACTIVITY**
I just came across this SUPER cute way to play with rocks from The Craft Train that I just had to share: Rock cakes!
http://www.thecrafttrain.com/1/post/2014/10/rock-cakes-for-pretend-play.html#comment-3147


How precious are those?!? They remind me of the tissue paper cupcake shop that I did with my niece a while back. Can’t wait to do this one as well!