Pet Rock Craft and Writing Activity

Help your kids adopt the easiest pet ever — a ROCK! (I know. Why didn’t you think of this before?) Once your child adopts a rock, he can dress it up, name it, and give it a home! Not only that, add literacy learning with a funny and fun writing activity.

Use a procedural “How-To” book like Laura Numeroff’s 10-Step Guide to Living with Your Monster as a mentor text from which you’ll help your child write her own guide to caring for her pet rock.

Project: Pet Rock (Craft and Procedural Writing Activity)

You may be astonished to know that the supplies are simple:

A rock

Craft supplies

Paper

Writing utensils

Your child will make his pet rock fancy with pom-poms, feathers, googly eyes, glue, string . . . whatever you have in your craft closet.

Voila!

Now you are ready to read and write.

Find the 10-Step Guide to Living With Your Monster by Laura Numeroff. If your library doesn’t have it, you can read a similar silly pet care book such as Buying, Training, and Caring for Your Dinosaur by Laura Joy Rennet or Dare to Care: Pet Dragon by M.P. Robertson or How to Wash a Wooly Mammoth by Michelle Robinson.

Get more how-to / procedural book ideas here.

First, read the book with your child.

Use the silly steps in the story as a model for your child to write his own story about taking care of a pet rock.

Tip: Don’t write the title first — you may want to see how many steps your child thinks up first.

Brainstorm with your child. Help them think of the steps by talking about them out loud — and see how wild and crazy she can be.

Prompts:

What (weird things) does your pet rock eat? (toothpaste?)

What (strange) activities does your pet rock love? (karaoke?)

What will happen if you don’t take good care of your pet rock? (barnacles?)

The goofier, the better. And the more engaged kids will be.

After your brainstorming conversation, provide a blank book for your child to use for his story. I stock up on Bare Books. But, you can always make your own blank books.