Crayon Rounds

Last week the girls and I took all of our broken crayon pieces and melted them in to crayon rounds.  It was very easy to do and something they both liked helping me with.  It was sort of exciting to put the different colored crayon bits and pieces together in the tins... then wait to see how they would melt, mix, harden, and turn into something new and fun to use.

So, if you are interested in giving this a try, here is what we did...

*We started by sorting out all of our broken crayons... *Then we took all the paper off of the broken pieces.  *Next I got out two metal muffin tins.  One normal sized and one mini muffin tin.  (You do not need to use muffin papers in the tins.  And, you do not need to spray the tins with any kind of oil.  When they come out of the oven and harden in the tins, they will fall right out of the tins, leaving hardly any crayon residue to clean.  The only extra cleaning or scraping that I needed to do to my tins after we took the crayon rounds out was around the top edges of the circles.)  *Next I preheated the oven to 250 degrees.  *The girls and I then filled the muffin tin holes with the broken crayon pieces.  We made one with only yellow, green and white in it.  There was one with only blues and purples, several with rainbow colors and one with Christmas colors.  When the holes were filled to the top, I placed the tins carefully in the oven.  It didn't take long and the crayons started to melt.  *I left the tins in the oven for approximately 15 minutes. 

*When I took the tins out of the oven, each hole looked liquid filled, and not very pretty.  I left them alone to cool off and start to harden for about 20 minutes.  *Next I placed one tin in the freezer and one tin into the fridge (because I didn't have enough room for both of them in one place).  This helped them to harden and cool even more.I left them in the freezer and fridge for approximately another 20 minutes.  

*I laid a dishtowel out on my kitchen counter.  Then I took the crayon rounds out of the freezer and fridge and I flipped the tins over and popped the crayon rounds out onto the towel.  Both girls were eagerly watching so that they could see what these would actually look like and how the colors had mixed.  They couldn't wait to try them out and make new pictures with each new crayon round.

The two below were Phoebe's favorites.

The three below were Sarah's favorites.

This turned out to be a very easy and fun activity to do together.  It was not too messy and had great teaching moments.  I would do this again with my kids. (Note: Crayon Rounds would make a fun and inexpensive gift for kids to help make and give to their friends with a sketchbook of empty white paper.  They could be wrapped easily in little clear sandwich baggies and tied with cute ribbon.)