There is a trend in my area (and maybe yours) that I hope lasts for a long time. It is painting rocks, hiding them, and then hunting for new ones. We call them “Kindness Rocks” here. People in my area paint rocks in thousands of different designs and hide them around town. They use a certain hashtag on the back of the rock so you can take a picture of it and post it on social media using the hashtag on the rock.
My family has had a lot of fun rock hunting in the past few months. My four year old found the first one all by himself. My husband found the second one. My oldest son found the third one and my middle son found the fourth one. I have “helped” find a few of them but lead my children to them so they can “find” them.
We live near Colonial Williamsburg and there is a huge following here. People paint rocks specifically to hide in the CW historic area. You can’t go to CW without spotting several rocks. We have enjoyed it a lot so far.
When you find the rocks, most of them get hidden in a different spot so the rock continues on its journey. But, there are some that say “keep or hide, you decide”. My kids have kept a few of them but we have moved some of them around to re-hide them.
We are in the process of painting our own rocks to hide. We have a kit that includes the rocks, paints, and a book with ideas of what to paint and how to paint it. We have a local hashtag that we will use as well as a family one. The actual painting of the rock doesn’t have to be fancy or perfect. My four year old just slops the paint around. It is about the fun of being involved.
If you have never heard of this, it is a good time to get onboard and start hunting for rocks in your area. Look on social media for rock groups in your area and they usually post different places that have rocks hidden. It has gotten us outside more and looking at nature instead of screens and electronics.
Here are great resources and supplies to start collecting for your rock hunting and painting adventures.
