Crayon Play

We finally did it.  My middle son has been asking me for years to make our own crayons. Then in our circle time we read about cooperation - and they had a project to make your own "stained glass" with wax paper.  The boys really wanted to do it, and we had old broken crayons on hand so we plunged right in.  Do you have any idea how big of a mess three boys (and a mom) can make peeling crayon wrappers and shaving crayons??   Doing THREE projects at once...

Project 1 - Making crayons

We made gingerbread crayons out of a mold I picked up at a garage sale.  The mold is really thin, so I feared they may be too thin, but the gingerbread people looked so cute we all wanted to try.  D and G's came out okay, B's broke as I got it out so we had to melt it again.  Came out worse.  So he then made "muffin crayons" in the muffin tin.

Project 2 - Crayon candle

G had to make the whole thing into a science experiment, of course, and his crayon had a string out of the head so he could melt it like a candle.  We did that outside on foil and it worked pretty good.

Project 3 - Wax paper stained glass

We grated crayon shavings onto wax paper, and then I went down to iron them between 2 rags.  It took forever, and I found as I stood there I was exhausted.  The day before I had a sore throat, and suddenly my sore throat was back.  After my third trip down to iron in the basement it was time to organize the clean up - it was past lunch time.

It was fun, it was too much at once - although the mess was consolidated to one day, and it did foster cooperation between us as we worked together.  However it was too much for my health.  It did remind me of the joy of teaching GymArt at Gymboree a few years ago.

Yesterday, I also baked tiles, G helped me divide them, and I took pictures for etsy.  We finally had nice sunny weather.  Moderation is my word for today.  I listed my first stained glass on etsy!   Yeah.