Making Crayons

This week the kiddos I watch are on Spring Break, so we've been having a lot of fun! I wrote out a bunch of free (or nearly free) activities, then cut them in strips and put them in a cup. The boys are picking three activities a day from the cup so that they know the schedule for the day, and have some fun things to look forward to. Today they picked going bowling (we have coupons for 2 free games), making a fort, and making crayons then coloring a picture with them. Many of you probably already know how to make crayons, but they turned out cute so I thought I'd share how to with you just in case you didn't know.

Materials: crayons (we used ones that were dull or already broken)
muffin tin
oven
exacto knife (optional)

Step 1: Peel all the paper off of the crayons. This is where the exacto knife comes into play; it's a lot easier to take off the paper if you cut a line in the paper first.

Step 2: Break the crayons into small pieces, about an inch or so. Arrange the colors in the muffin tin however you'd like (we grouped similar colors, but didn't use more than one of the same colored crayon because the boys wanted theirs to be "rainbow").

Step 3: Put it in the oven on low heat (250* F or so) until the crayons melt together and you can no longer see the shape of the individual pieces (it took ours about 6 minutes).

Step 4: Let the crayons cool completely, then run a knife around the edges of the tin and pop the crayons out. Enjoy coloring!

Some of our crayons cracked a little, but the boys loved it, and even the baby (15 months old) got in on the action. They were much easier for the baby to grip than the regular skinny crayons, and the older boys thought it was neat that the same crayon produced different colors.