I totally snagged this idea from Pinterest, but it is a perfect fit into our Solid, Liquid and Gas unit study while being an art project at the same time. Double duty!
We began by putting a container of old crayons in rainbow order. (The boys each picked out a new box of crayons for school so these have been going unused.)
Then, I used a hot glue gun to affix them to canvas. We talked about the glue sticks being a solid prior to being heated by the glue gun and melting into a liquid. The crayons are also a solid. But how can we turn them into a liquid, boys? Shove them into the glue gun, Mom!
Hmm, how about using a hair dryer instead? The wax began to melt after only a few minutes on high heat. How can we make them melt even faster, boys? How about fire, Mom!
Okay! Fire it is.
Some crayons melted better than others, but I assume that’s because some are higher quality than others. Some were Crayola, others were cast-offs from restaurants.
For the remaining crayons, we stripped the paper, broke them into pieces and baked the them at 250 degrees in a muffin tin, again driving home the lesson that heat can turn a solid into a liquid.
And now we have these beautiful crayon disks and a lovely piece of art work for their bedroom wall.
very cool