As far back as I can remember, I have been studying rocks. Sometimes, I used a hammer to study the insides of rocks. My brothers and I would sit on the porch for hours breaking them up to see what they were made of. As the years progressed, I stopped hammering them and began to collect them from all over America. Where ever I wandered, I finished up back home with a pocket full of rocks, or maybe an entire bag full. I suppose people found me to be very odd at times because as we would be having a conversation, I would be studying the rocks on the ground. Soon, I'd be sitting on my heels, picking them up as I talked, wetting the rock with my finger to see the surface markings better, and perhaps, if my fingers wouldn't let it go, I would put it in my purse, or my pocket. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't rude about it, it would be sort of casual conversations among friends who knew me well enough not to be insulted by my pre-occupation. I finally discovered that there were field guides that told about the rocks when I was in my mid-thirties. For several years after that, I excitedly instructed my son by reading the names and statistics to him with the result that he now knows more about rocks and geology than most people. He was not as enthusiastic about them as I was, but we had fun while he and I were learning. Sometimes we were looking for diamonds and rubies in the gravel, creating a world of imagination. He received a course in geology that was thoroughly unintentional, painless and fun on his part as we sat on the ground playing with the pea gravel.

It never occurred to me that I would find myself sitting in that pile of gravel, studying the rocks. The neighbors think I'm crazy anyway, so I simply indulged myself. Now I have bowls and baskets full of "interesting" finds from petrified wood, agates, fossils, jaspers of all colors and shapes, flint, chert, many colors of quartz and even some stones that appear to have been used as tools in the far distant past. And grandchildren who love to look at them!

I don't know if it was my behavior that has encouraged my grandchildren to sit in my driveway looking for interesting rocks, or their own fascination with digging through the small irregular stones, but when they get too quiet, I can usually find them examining their rocky finds in the drive way. My three year old granddaughter seems to be most interested in them, at the moment, and it is the perfect time to instill what could become a life long interest in geology.

I think the virtues of pea gravel have been overlooked by most parents who are trying to find ways to keep their little ones occupied. They will purchase a sand box and fill it full of sand for the kids to play in and then when the neighborhood cats find it, they will buy a cover for it. And then, if they get the kids dressed for an outing only to find them covered in sand when it's time to go, a sand box can become frustrating for adults.

"Look Ma! No dirt!" Cats aren't all that fond of pea gravel so the lid of the sand box becomes unnecessary. Besides, a kid can do just about anything in the gravel box that s/he can do in the sand box without getting sandy or dirty. Sand only comes in one color for kids to play in. White. Pea gravel comes in a multitude of colors and shades, and various shapes and sizes, all contributing to millions of neurological pathways in a child's brain. Playing in a pea gravel box would enhance eye/hand co-ordination as well as a highly developed sense of shapes and colors. Eye-candy.

Adults don't care too much about playing IN the sand box with the kids, either. Unless we are at the beach, sand isn't something most of us want to get all over ourselves, so we tend to sit outside the box while the kids play IN it. I think kids get a lot out of having a parent who will get down into the "scene" with them. A parent would be a whole lot more likely to sit IN the pea gravel to play with the kids than in the sand box. Quality time just becomes more comfortable for the adult if dirt isn't involved. And don't forget that field guide!

There are plenty of project that kids can do outside the pea gravel box as well:

• For younger children and babies you can put a bowl or pan of the larger pieces of pea gravel down on the floor for exploration Washing these stones with a soapy bleach water before allowing the babies to handle them will help with the germ control. Make sure the pieces are larger than marble size, and oddly shaped so that the baby cannot begin to swallow them. Of course, the rocks are going in the mouth! This is how we all learned when we arrived. Banging on the pans is also expected. New and various sounds thrill even me!Make sure bowls are made of an unbreakable material like Corelle (TM) ware, as well. Cookie and cake tins with very tight lids also make for wonderful rattles and musical instruments.
• Rocks in the bathub can be a glorius experience for a child of any age.The wet rocks will shimmer and shine like it has been polished and the colors become vivid an brilliant. Watching the water evaporate and comparing wet and dry also part of a curriculum for the very young.
• With a bottle of glue and a paper plate, a child can create beautiful rock paintings using different colored gravel. Sorting the colors into little plastic containers can be quite absorbing and calming, even for adults who want to help. Imagination, creativity, focus and manual dexterity are enhanced with this activity, not to mention patience.
• Pebbles can be glued to flower pots to make decorative pots for houseplants. The larger pea gravel can even be glued to a very large pot to make a very nice holder for the water hose. I have actually done this myself!
• Flour and water dough can be impressed with pea gravel designs and baked into plaques to hang on the walls.
• Perma Clay and air dry clays for kids can be decorated with pea gravel and used to make more permanent plaques and even jewelry. An unfinished "gem stone" bracelet, necklace or ring, baked just right, or allowed to dry and then strung on string can be beautiful even for parents to wear!
• Creating an instant polished rock by painting it with clear nail polish can be very fun and interesting for children and adults alike.
• For the older kids, wet cement (or quik-crete) patties with pea gravel designs can be dried into stepping stones and garden decorations. *Just be sure that the children wear protective rubber gloves and long sleeves because cement can burn the skin if not carefully handled.
• Field guides with color plates of the different kind of stones and rocks gives an older child something to compare his fascinating find to. You may even catch your child browsing through the book, checking out the pictures of rocks instead of watching television some evening! What a shock!
• The electric rock polisher is wonderful for those who have the patience of saints. I never did. My son enjoyed one for a while if we kept it outside in the shed. The steady drone of electricity ate at my nerves. After 24 hours, I was ready to scream This wonderful machine is perfect for those with a sound-proof room and kids who have a lot of patience to wait to see how their pea gravel polish job comes out.

Some hardware stores carry bags of fifty pounds and up. Garden and lawn services can usually offer loads of graded and ungraded size pea gravel. Concrete companies and rock crusher plants can usually supply you with pea gravel and sometimes may refer to it as rainbow rock. Please try to get the rocks that come from a watery place because it makes the gravel with rounded and soft edges. Places that offer landscape rocks will be a good place to buy pea gravel if you don't buy the one color river rock meant for flower beds. There is no fun in all one color as far as a kid is concerned. I ordered mine from a rock company that supplies unwashed river pea gravel that was taken right out of the river bed when they filled my order. Unwashed means that it came with a layer of red dried mud and clay around the stones. After the first couple of rains, the silt is washed beneath the rocks and you have wonderful, ungraded pea gravel, which means the size is irregular.

Asking them to tell you how they think the rock was formed, or where it might have come from in ancient times opens a door of creative imagination that few adults remember ever having themselves The stories that children tell about the creation of something may actually be closer to the truth than our present day scientists and geologists know. Children are learning machines and when it comes to the physical world, that is their job. Until we adults begin to stifle that natural ability of learning by osmosis and insisting that they learn only in a pattern that is acceptable to our present educational systems, learning is fun and efficient for them. They are all geniuses.

Sometimes it is best for the child to be allowed to learn all by themselves, or to at least let them think that is the case. The parent's job is to set the learning scene with care and forethought. It has been my observation that many parents don't think about setting up natural environments to expose their children to absorbing information about the real world under controlled conditions that don't appear to be controlled..

Joining your child in play, no matter what age you child is, and allowing them to think the play is their idea in the first place, allows you to set up scenes of controlled exposure . Whether it is in a pea gravel box, a sand box, or digging for worms under the leaves (another of my granddaughter's favorite things to do!), splashing in the mud puddle after the rain storm, picking flowers, chasing butterflies and hummingbirds are all forms of education, or controlled exposure, that could determine whether your child becomes a well rounded adult. Join them! Let them see that adults can play, laugh and have fun, too! You could even find that they grow up to become the adult version of the true scientists they are as infants, toddlers, and children. And maybe even a geologist!