Melrose Rocks Continued

For Teacher Appreciation Week one of my students gave the most amazing gift, a decorated rock. He was a little upset, since it got a little banged up on the way to school, so he told me he'd make me another.  This rock changed me. It was the inspiration I needed to be the change.

In our area there is a lot of hiding rocks for people to find.  It's a random act of kindness, spread the joy, heart lifting type of movement.  There are groups for different areas sharing the rocks they have hidden or found.  I knew that one of the schools in our district had a big event creating and hiding rocks in Palatka and I just thought the concept was so stinking cool.

So my classes decorated rocks.  Well they decorated rocks based on things they learned in science class this year.  Then they had to describe what the rock was, why they created it, and provide another detail about that topic.  We posted this to our Seesaw accounts.  This allowed students to share within the class as well as any parents that had connected to Seesaw.

From here I pulled their words and pictures to post to my blog.  This took out any of their identifying information, but allowed them to share with the world.  The intended audience was our school community.

We hid these rocks around our campus.  I emailed the other teachers and staff to let them know about our project.  We got a super positive response.  In the final weeks leading up to summer, when everyone IS DONE.  This was a spark of excitement, happiness that we all needed.

The whole thing is not hiccup free.  Some of my students didn't want to give up their works of art.  Some of them got upset that others had "their" rocks.  I even had students wandering when they shouldn't have to snipe as many rocks as they could find.  That seems to have settled, and we've had some good discussion about the intent of the project.  Most students seem to understand.

It's been exciting though.  My class overlooks the playground, and it's cool to see kids running out looking for these rocks.  Kids on the sidewalks really taking in their environment to see if they find one.

I left lots of extra rocks in a basket by the teacher's mailboxes.  I've had to replenish this a few times.  It warms my heart that others are joining in on the fun.  I LOVE seeing this beautiful artwork and creativity of the students.