Stepping Stones

Stepping Stones is one of the projects that we do every year in Garden Club! The students love it and so do we! This project was first brought to us by Kitty Dufek-Maier, a member of the WA Community Garden Club. She would make these stepping stones at home with her grandkids and thought it would be a great project for our club!

To prepare for this project, the first thing we needed to do was collect rotisserie chicken containers--the bottom, black, plastic part. This year, we got into contact with Pick n' Save to see if they were willing to donate these containers to us. We use the rotisserie chicken containers as the holders for the cement aka Stepping Stones--this container is easy for cement to be popped out of once they are dry, and then the container can just be disposed of. In previous years, we had families/students help us collect them if their family ate a rotisserie chicken at home! Thank you to Mr. LaLuzerne for helping us out this year--we really appreciate it and we wouldn't have been able to do this project without your help in collecting all the containers for us.

We then went to go to Menards (You could probably go to any hardware store that sells cement) and pick up the cement to mix.

*Below in the pictures is a bag of the cement we use.

Each group, about 25-30 students, uses about 2-3 bags of cement.

We also needed to make sure we had 5 gallon buckets and heavy duty mixing tubs for mixing the cement. To mix the cement we needed to make sure we had big garden hoes as well as wooden sticks and trowels. The trowels are also used for smoothing out the cement once it's in the container. We also make sure to have a couple tarps to put on the ground under the buckets while the cement is being mixed.

For this meeting, we first start out as a whole group and explain to the students the project that they are going to be doing for the day. We have all students take a container and with a piece of masking tape, put their name on the outside. We then break the students into two even groups--one group will start out by designing what they want their stepping stone to look like on a sheet of paper, and the other group will start out by mixing cement.

When the students are designing their stepping stones, they are first told what their options for decorations are--students are able to put their hand print in it, thumb prints to make hearts, sea glass, glass stones, number stamps (we suggest the year), or anything else the kids find creative! They draw their design on their paper and then are able to put aside the supplies they want to use. We limit the students to 15 pieces of decorations (otherwise the stones can be too much).

When the students are mixing their stepping stones, they are first taught the technique of mixing--adding some powder mix and adding water little by little. We talk about making sure the mix is just right--if it's too watery the year doesn't show up well and dries very glossy, and if it's too dry, the mixture will crumble when trying to take it out of the container. Students add mix to their containers and set aside to decorate after they are finished at the design station.

Students then switch stations. When they are finished at their second station, they are able to actually put their design into their stepping stone. Before they decorate their stone, one of the adults evens/smoothes out the cement in the container with a trowel. When students are finished designing, we make sure their decorations (glass stones, etc.) are pushed into the cement well so they will not fall out. We let them dry overnight and students are able to pick them up the next morning.

Supplies: paper for designing stone, plastic containers for form, concrete powder mix, water, tarps, big containers for mixing (we use 5 gallon buckets and heavy duty mixing tubs), items to stir concrete (we use wooden sticks from the paint section at the hardware store as well as a big garden hoe for when it's being mixed in the heavy duty mixing tubs), trowels for scooping cement into containers and smoothing out cement in container (we like to use triangular shaped ones, its easier to make it smooth in the container), sea glass, marbles, shells, glass stones, number stamps

We would like to thank Kork Verbanac and Kevin Kroll for coming in and helping us make concrete and stamp the year in our stepping stones!!