levi's new crayons

I'd been thinking lately about making Levi some crayons that he could color with. He's tried using Camille's but he has a hard time holding them. But I didn't want to buy a new box of crayons just for this project. Then lo and behold I found a big box of Crayola crayons in the closet downstairs this morning! Perfect!

But wait? Won't Camille use those crayons? Actually, Camille much prefers to color with markers or colored pencils. And when she does use crayons she likes to use the Crayola twistable crayons.

So here I was with this box of 64 brand new crayons. I set myself up at the table next to Camille (who was playing with pompoms) with a knife and a bowl and the box of crayons. I used the knife to slice down the length of the crayons paper and peeled it away, and put the crayons in the bowl. I used all but 10 crayons.

Then while the oven was heating (200 degrees) Camille and I broke the crayons and sorted them into muffin cups by color. 

I popped them into the oven and looked at the clock so that I would know when to check them. The directions I had found said they would melt in roughly 10 to 20 minutes.

And then I promptly forgot about them.

I can't really say how long they were in the oven because I don't recall when I put them in and I don't recall when I took them out. Maybe 40 minutes? More? But one thing was for sure: the were melted.

I set the muffin tray in the fridge so the new crayons would harden. After a little while (again, I have no idea how long, perhaps half an hour?) I checked on them and they looked ready. So I pulled them out, peeled the muffin cups off of them and beheld the glorious sight of Levi-safe crayons.

After trimming up the edges a bit (the photos are of the crayons before I trimmed them) I set the boys on the kitchen floor with the crayons and a piece of paper. Camille kindly showed them what to do and then was quickly off doing big kid things elsewhere.

Josiah thought they were a new percussion instrument and enjoyed clapping them together. Levi...well, you can guess what he did with the crayons. But still, they turned out well, and I'm looking forward to when all the kids can sit at the table and color together. We like to do lots of projects here and getting these babies used to crayons will be a big step in the right direction for them!