Looking for something fun to do with the kids the other day, I searched through my bookmark folder labeled 'crafts with kids'. I found a project that was made for the hot, sunny weather that day - melting crayon shavings onto a rock with a magnifying glass. Perfect! The kids and I waited until the afternoon when it was nice and sunny, and took a plate full of crayon shavings and our magnifying glass out to the driveway. We picked a few rocks, piled on the shavings and found the perfect angle to start roasting our rocks:
The kids took turns with the magnifying glass, but we quickly learned it was sunny enough to melt the crayons without it! Even the extra shavings on the paper plate we had brought out soon started to melt. Rowan quickly lost interest and headed for the shade, so I left her rocks to bake on the driveway unattended:
The finished projects:
It was exciting when the angle of the magnifying glass was just right - the wax would start to bubble up and spread out immediately. But it took an awful long time in the hot sun to get all the shavings melted, and the results were not as spectacular as we had anticipated. The wax shrunk as it melted, leaving a lot of the rock uncovered. Still, it was a fun and almost free entertainment!
Later that night we looked at the pile of crayons still sitting on the kitchen island and wondered what we could do with them. I remembered a craft I had seen on a great kids activity blog I recently found called Mini-Eco. I found the post again on how to make recycled crayons and we set to work choosing colors and peeling the papers of the crayons (I found an exacto knife worked wonders on those sometimes sticky wrappers). We sprayed a muffin tin with oil, and arranged our broken crayon pieces into the rounds:
I put them into a preheated 275 degree oven until each crayon was melted, probably about 10 minutes or so. The colors melted and swirled quite nicely on their own, but you could also twirl a toothpick through to make more of a swirl pattern:
Our new (old) crayons!
The kids are excited to test them out and color up something beautiful. I am excited to have found such a great source for kids crafts, and I cant wait to start our next project!
The kids took turns with the magnifying glass, but we quickly learned it was sunny enough to melt the crayons without it! Even the extra shavings on the paper plate we had brought out soon started to melt. Rowan quickly lost interest and headed for the shade, so I left her rocks to bake on the driveway unattended:
The finished projects:
It was exciting when the angle of the magnifying glass was just right - the wax would start to bubble up and spread out immediately. But it took an awful long time in the hot sun to get all the shavings melted, and the results were not as spectacular as we had anticipated. The wax shrunk as it melted, leaving a lot of the rock uncovered. Still, it was a fun and almost free entertainment!
Later that night we looked at the pile of crayons still sitting on the kitchen island and wondered what we could do with them. I remembered a craft I had seen on a great kids activity blog I recently found called Mini-Eco. I found the post again on how to make recycled crayons and we set to work choosing colors and peeling the papers of the crayons (I found an exacto knife worked wonders on those sometimes sticky wrappers). We sprayed a muffin tin with oil, and arranged our broken crayon pieces into the rounds:
I put them into a preheated 275 degree oven until each crayon was melted, probably about 10 minutes or so. The colors melted and swirled quite nicely on their own, but you could also twirl a toothpick through to make more of a swirl pattern:
Our new (old) crayons!
The kids are excited to test them out and color up something beautiful. I am excited to have found such a great source for kids crafts, and I cant wait to start our next project!