Heart Crayons

I have made these big chunky crayons before with regular muffin tins, but was inspired here to use heart-shaped muffin tins!

Here are the steps:

-gather up all your old and broken crayons

-soak them in a big bowl of water for a couple of hours

-peel off all the paper (the soaking helps facilitate this)

-sort them by color

-break them into small pieces and fill the muffin tins (which have been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray)

-bake for about 10 minutes in a 300 degree oven

-let cool on counter 10 minutes

-let cool in fridge 10 more minutes or until hard

-tap on bottom of pan and tip over to remove

-package and give away!

*try combining colors

Here are the educational benefits:
*fine motor (peeling and breaking crayons)
*practice colors (great for younger preschoolers)
*practice sorting
*science--Before you put them in the oven, ask your child to predict what will happen and why they think this. Turn on the oven light every few minutes to peek at the progress.....talk about what is happening. Why do things melt? What things melt? After they harden again, talk about the change that occurred. What made the changes occur?
*Talk about what crayons are made of
*Have your kids make the packaging--they can do the writing on the packaging or draw pictures.