Rock project progress

During the Term 2 holidays, I started prepping for the 'Rock Colourful Pathway Project'. My Deputy Principal read up an article about an elementary school teacher at Indiana who started a project where every student painted a rock to make up a bright and colourful pathway. She kindly suggested that this might be a good Project Based Learning project. This project has gone bigger and it is now a whole school project. It is one of the Positive Behaviour for Learning initiative. Every student, teacher and staff are encouraged to paint a rock. We want to send out creative and positive vibes throughout the school and local community. At the moment I am trying to prepare for a 'Rock' stall for the school's Heritage (Multicultural) day so that I can get some parents and carers involved with the painting process.

Local businesses have assisted by donating rocks! Flower Power and Bunnings are our biggest supporters. I am blessed to be working in a community where businesses see the value of contributing to school projects.

My students have been very generous with their time. They have been transporting the rocks, washing and drying them. Some classes have painted a base coat using exterior house paint. I have started dividing the rocks into cardboard boxes according to the colour of the base coat. On Heritage Day, anyone can pick up a rock and then decorate it with posca markers (acrylic paint in a marker). I will then take it back to my classroom at the end of the day to put a sealer coat on top. This allows the rock painting to survive harsh sunlight and rain!

I still have hundreds of rocks left to wash, dry and paint. The process will be repeated for the next few weeks. Eventually, there will be around 1200+ rocks painted.


My project hack:
1. Get donations. Call hardware and landscape stores for free rocks.
2. Write up a grant to get funding for paint etc.
3. Direct students to:
-Wash and dry rocks
-Paint a base coat using external house paint
3. Give students posca markers (acrylic paint in a marker) to draw their designs on the rock. Try and make some teacher samples or give them some referencing images.
4. Direct students to add a sealer. I am using the stone & paving sealer (natural) from the brand Berger.