Recycled Rainbow Crayons

Do you have kids (yours, step, grands, nieces/nephews) in your house?  Have you ever noticed how many crayons they have?  And broken ones at that... Some how, restaurant crayons come home with us, and we already have a million Crayola sets already.  So one day this summer, I had Jordan and Mia search the house for all of the broken, unwrapped, old, worn-down, and miscellaneous crayons.  We were going to recycle them, and make a craft!  I originally found this craft idea on Pinterest in the winter, but decided to tuck it away until we were in our Rainbow week of summer learning.  During that week, we visited the Crayola factory, and learned how to make crayons, so this was a perfect way to recycle old crayons.

Here's how we made our Recycled Rainbow Crayons...

Kids: Collect all old, broken, worn-down crayons.
Adult: Preheat oven to 230 degrees
Kids: Take off any extra wrappers.
Adult: On an old cutting board, Chop the crayons into small (1/2 inch or smaller) pieces with a sharp knife.
Kids: Throw all of the pieces in a bowl to mix them up.

Kids: Using a mini-muffin pan, fill each well with a variety of colors. (A silicon muffin bakeware would work too- then you can skip # )

Adult: Put pans in the oven, bake for 15 minutes.
Adult: Pull pans out, crayons will be melted. Let cool on counter top, until solid.

Kids: Once solid, pop into the freezer for 5-10 minutes. This allows the wax to separate from the pans like ice cubes. Flip pans over, tap, and VOIlÀ.. Rainbow Crayons!

Kids & Adult: Now, color & have fun!!