Making Crayons

I don't know about you, but crayons are always lost in my classroom. I have a "Crayon Hotel" that crayons go when they fall on the floor or people just don't want anymore. Needless to say, my bucket has gotten full and we needed to do something with them. So on Friday when we had just a little free time for art, we started peeling the paper away on some of the crayons.

I told my kids to take 2-3 crayons, peel them, and break them into little pieces. I then gave them each a little cup with their name on it to put them in.(These are my favorite!!! I got them from Walmart and they have become our class money banks. I also use them for my own children's lunches to stick in ranch dressing, etc!) I got to take them home and melt them in the oven. I used a heart silicone tray for my girls, and a mini muffin tin for my boys.

I turned the oven to 275 degrees. I had to just stand by the oven to make sure they were melting okay. The bigger heart crayons took around 8 minutes to melt, and the smaller circle ones were closer to 5 minutes. The kids were so excited when they got to school on Monday. They wanted their crayons. I was amazed that they were so excited. So we started first by watching this great clip of how crayons are made. The clip is from Mr. Roger's neighborhood. They loved this!

They loved how their crayons turned out. We loved this little project! If you want to make more of it, you could always read a book about crayons, such as Harold and the Purple Crayon.