Our home town has a fun little group that hides painted rocks around town. Our little group shares our painted rock finds on Facebook, then re-hide the little treasures for someone else to enjoy. The boys and I have always wanted to paint some rocks to hide, instead of just finding them. A year ago, my kids and I used centrifugal force to paint spiders onto rocks. While waiting for a day to hide them, it rained and we discovered that the paint we used washed off. So we were not able to hide our rocks. We all loved the rock painting STEM activity so much, I’ve been looking for other ways for us to repeat it. This fall, it dawned on me that we could rock paint caramel apples in the same way. It would be a perfect fall STEM activity for my boys!
Caramel Apple Rock Painting Fall STEM Activity
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Supplies:
Spin Art Machine
Large Landscaping Pebbles
Acrylic Paint Set – will not wash off in the rain (but also won’t wash out of clothes, so be careful!)
Small Droppers
Hot Glue Gun
Straws
Procedure:
Step 1: First, each of my sons picked out a rock to paint. We rinsed and dried each one.
Step 2: Next my sons painted their rocks red. We painted the rocks 3 times, waiting for them to completely dry between layers. Now we had bright red rock apples!
Step 3: To make the caramel, we mixed some white and brown paint together in a plastic cup. I also added a little water to the mix, so the paint would spread on the rock easier. Then we filled one small dropper halfway with paint.
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Step 4: We followed the same steps we used when we painted spiders to paint caramel onto our “apples” (red painted rocks). The boys loved watching the paint start in the center of the rock, then slowly move out to the rock’s edges.
Step 5: After the paint was completely dry, we hot glued straws to the top of our caramel apples, just like real caramel apples!
Our little family had so much fun experimenting with centripetal force again. And our apples turned out so cute! Now to find a day when its not raining to hide our rocks!
Looking for more Fall STEM activities? Try some of these STEM activities!
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