I first published a version of this post at Kids Activities Blog  May 13, 2013.

At our home, melted crayon art is the no-fail, attention grabbing, fun, art of choice. My sons (and I) love watching crayons melt. It’s exciting, beautiful and oddly therapeutic.

Only problem is, the set up for our previous melted crayon art experiences involve a fair bit of effort and time. With our first melting crayon experience, even without needing to use a hot glue gun, just getting the crayons to their melting point took awhile. (Once the crayons melted and the colours started to ooze and blend, the waiting time was quickly forgotten though.) Similarly, with our eggs decorated with melted crayon shavings. Awesome fun, but getting those crayon shavings was hard work.

Melted Crayon Art: Quick and Easy Eggs

This is a quick and easy way to do melted crayon art. It doesn’t take forever for crayons to melt. There’s no need to grate crayons for crayon shavings.

You’ll need to boil your eggs. Place the eggs in a pot and cover them with enough water so the water level is about an inch above the eggs. Roughly, for every cup of water, place 1 tbsp. of white vinegar. Bring the water to boil and boil your eggs.

Once your eggs are boiled and nice and hot, quickly remove them and place them in eggcups, (I reused the egg carton and cut out little cups to hold individual eggs).

Working quickly, using crayons, simply draw on the hot eggs. As you draw, the crayons melt and become vibrant in colour.

This is such a fun and quick activity to do while waiting for eggs to cool down so they can be gobbled up. (After I removed the shell, I gave the eggs a good rinse just to make sure).

More Activities for Preschoolers

Three to Five: Playful Preschool is stuffed to the brim with tried, tested and loved playful learning ideas for preschoolers. There are 25+ ideas for preschoolers, ten printable resources and additional links to over 50 more activities. A great resource for parents. Download your copy here.

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The post Quick and Easy Melted Crayon Art by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

 
Do you have moments when you wished you had a pause button?

 
We’ve munched down our lunch, the table has been cleared and the dishes packed away. Mr E and Miss K are in their rooms having their afternoon naps.

 
Two pairs of wide eyes peep over the kitchen bench.

 
“Melted crayons?!” Memories of melted crayon art flashed through their minds as their excited little legs jumped up and down with excitement.

 
“Melted crayon Eggs?!” Eggs, real eggs; the stuff they love to crack when baking. Two skinny bottoms dance a jig. Oh, how lovely it would be to have a pause button so as to enjoy that moment of happy excitement just that little bit longer.

Easter Craft for Kids: Melted Crayon Eggs

 
These melted crayon eggs, (inspired by the amazing NYCtaughtme.com), are the perfect Easter craft for kids.

 
These melted crayon eggs involve much less noise and dare I say less effort? There aren’t any hair dryers involved, but there’s still the thrill of watching crayons melt. And just look at the lovely oozy mix of colours on these melted crayon eggs!

 
Hard boil the eggs. Place your eggs in a pot. Fill the pot with enough water so it’s an inch above the eggs. For every cup of water in the pot, add 1 teaspoon of vinegar.

 
Grate some crayons. Two tips to help keep your sanity: protect your work area by lining it with large pieces of paper; purchase a small grater for this because whatever grater you use will be near impossible to clean. You don’t need a whole lot of crayon shavings for these melted crayon eggs; less is more. Have the kids peel off the crayon paper and either you or your kids grate the crayons.

 
Work quickly while your hard boil eggs are hot. Place your hard boiled eggs on the working area and quickly place crayon shavings on the eggs. The crayon shavings will melt beautifully. You’ll have to work quickly to cover the eggs before they cool down.

 
Mr N and M silently marvelled as the crayon shavings melted; oh to have that pause button once again!

More Activities for Preschoolers

Three to Five: Playful Preschool is stuffed to the brim with tried, tested and loved playful learning ideas for preschoolers. There are 25+ ideas for preschoolers, ten printable resources and additional links to over 50 more activities. A great resource for parents. Download your copy here.

The post Easter Craft for Kids: Melted Crayon Eggs by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

This week we’re learning about the letter [m]. We started off rainbow writing the letter [m] using our texta silk crayons.

We then moved our rainbow writing onto more unconventional mediums.

We scooped some sweetened condensed milk onto baking trays and practised writing the letter shape of [m]. It’s a tricky letter shape to learn as it involves hops, not just simple lines and circles. We’re still working on it.

N & M have never tasted sweetened condensed milk before. They were blown away.

MMMMMMM

More Milk? Yes. More. Milk.

More m’s.

Mmmmmmm

Then I gave them some melted chocolate to add to their trays.

Last but not least came the bowl of warm custard.

They delighted in mixing all three wonderfully sweet ingredients as they practised their rainbow writing of [m].

(There may have been more tasting than rainbow writing.)

Simple ideas for introducing [m]

Show children a written lower case [m]

• Model the mouth movement and sound [m]
• Visually connect the picture/word “mix” with the letter sound [m]
• Kinaesthetically simulate a mixing action. Close fist and move it in a circular action.

This post was shared in the following linky parties:

Today at Play
It’s Playtime
Kids Get Crafty
TGIF
Sunday Showcase
Play Academy
Crafty Moms Share Sharing Saturday
Link & Learn

The post [m] is for mixing the wonderfully sweet by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

Ever since our melted crayon art, N & M have been asking to melt crayons every couple of days. We finally melted crayons again this week, but instead of melting crayons onto a piece of paper, I thought we’d try melting crayons into some silicone moulds.

We broke up some crayons

 and placed them into the moulds.

Then we put our hair dryer to work. We used a low fan setting so the crayons didn’t blow away.

We waited for the crayons to set.

After a few minutes, when the crayons had hardened again, we popped them out of the moulds and wow – we had some really cute crayons!

M created some crayon grapes.

N created some crayon ducklings.

They admired their crayon creations,

played with them,

and rearranged them around a bit.

Who would have thought melting stuff with a hair dryer could be so fun?

We may try chocolate next. Yum.

N & M: 3 years, 4 months.

This post was shared in the following linky parties:

The Nurture Store Play Academy

Living Life Intentionally

Kids Get Crafty

No Time for Flash Cards Link & Learn

After School

It’s Playtime

Sunday Showcase

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