From Solid, to Liquid, Back to Solid...

In our last post, we took something that was a liquid, turned it into a solid, then used it to add to our ongoing mural project. To expand on that process, we followed up with another art project that involved turning a solid into a liquid, then back into a solid!

The idea for our "recycled crayon" project came from this book. The title not only serves as a metaphor, reminding adults to sit back and let the artistic process unfold with young children, it is single most important rule to follow in order to produce perfect rainbow crayon melts-trust us!

First, we put hundreds of extra crayons into our sensory table for the children to peel and sort.

Next, we put the peeled crayons into a heavy-duty zippered freezer bag, and let the Frogs crush them with rubber mallets.

Instead of muffin tins, we sprinkled our crayon bits into oven safe, silicone ice cube trays...

Then we popped them into the oven at 250 degrees, where they sat until they just started to melt.

As soon as we could see the wax turning into a semi-liquid, we turned off the oven and, (this was really the hardest part) We did not move the ice cube trays until they were completely cooled.

Once the wax was cool and mostly solid, the Frogs were excited to examine how the crayon bits had changed up close and with all of their senses.

Mmmmmm...waxy!!!

They were a little difficult to get out of the ice cube trays, so we popped them into the freezer in order to shrink the wax a bit.

Out they came, with a few minor breaks. (The heart shaped ones broke far less than the fish and the stars.)

Voila! Multi-colored, fun-shaped, crayon bits, all in the name of science!