Cooking Crayons

Levi loves his crayons to pieces.  Literally.  He holds them so hard that they snap, rendering them pretty much useless until I had an idea.  Cook the crayons!  I know, I know.  Not very original but the timing was oh-so-brilliant!  So cook the crayons we did on this wet, gray, stay-inside-all-day day..

This was Levi's  first cooking project ever.  I gathered the materials and had everything ready, mise en place:  cupcake liners, muffin pan and crayons.

We lined the muffin pan.  Levi had a field day with this...

I had to remind him that the liners were not for eating a few times.  I turned the oven to 275 degrees, the lowest setting on my stove.  Then we placed bits and pieces of one crayon in each muffin.

This turned into a whole categorizing and sorting activity in itself.  While we sorted (and unsorted) the colors, I kept on saying, "Orange crayons.  _____ crayons.  We're going to bake the ________ crayons.  The _______ crayons will melt."

Then I popped the pan into the oven with Levi standing way back.  He is terrified of anything that is labeled "HOT" by me, so he remained rooted to the spot while I slid the crayons in.  Levi peeked through the oven window to see the crayons oozing into their new shapes.

This took about 10 minutes then I took them out to cool.  Levi indicated he was ready for his nap.  While Levi napped, the crayons cooled and hardened.

By the time Levi woke up, the crayons solidified.  I was going to remove the crayons from the pan, but then I realized the value of Levi seeing crayons the same way he last left them so I left everything exactly the way they were when he went down for his nap.  When Levi popped the crayons in their new form, his face--priceless.

Levi has repurposed his crayons--they are now his special stackable crayons. 

During this project he signed "cook colors," "hot," and "melt."  He sorted the crayon pieces by color (with my help).  Labeling, categorizing and fine motor skills were hard at work play.  This simple project goes such a long way.  I just hope Levi keeps on smiling like this until he's 65.