We absolutely love to do craft projects in our home and we love using things that we already have on hand!! So I decided to come up with a list of uses for crayons! Crayola crayons have been around since 1903 and many of us have fond memories of our younger years and the ever famous Crayola crayons. I remember sitting in class at the beginning of the school year with a fresh sheet of white paper and a full box of unused crayons.
Car or Truck Drawing – This is a really cool way to get your budding artist to draw! Take a small toy car or truck and tape a crayon to the back end of it with the crayon pointing downward and touching the paper you are going to be playing on. Sometimes we use a large poster board to give the kiddos a larger playing area. Let them “drive” their design onto the paper. As the car/truck moves across the paper it will leave a trail of beautiful colors behind.
Color Matching Crayons– When coming up for uses for crayons I wanted to make sure I included a color matching game. Take a few bowls of various colors and have your child go through their crayons and put the matching color in the bowl that matches best. Don’t worry if you don’t have that many colored bowls on hand, just take a muffin tin and cut out circles of corresponding colors from construction paper and tape them to the bottom of the tin.
Sun Catchers – These beautiful sun catchers are not only easy to do but are a great way to recycle old crayons. Have your child take a hand held pencil sharpener and make a pile of crayon shavings. They can either mix them into one big pile or keep the colors separate. Take a sheet of wax paper and fold it in half. Place the crayon shavings inside the wax paper (sparingly). Then place a sheet of aluminum foil on top of it to protect your iron. On medium heat briefly run the iron over the sun catcher until melted. Cool and display in your window.
Crayon Etching – Take a piece of paper and color all over it with different colored crayons. Don’t worry about making a picture out of it just yet; the most important thing is to fully cover the piece of paper with the crayons. We actually made a rainbow of thick lines about 2 inches thick for each color. Once you have the sheet fully covered take a black crayon and color the entire sheet with black. Take a sharp object (careful with the younger kids) like a skewer, end of a utensil or something that will etch into the drawing and draw a picture where you have colored in black. You should be able to see the colors come through the black crayon making your crayon etching art awesomely unique!
Up-cycled DIY Crayon Shapes – We all have tons of old broken crayons laying around so why not take something old and make it new again! Take all of your broken crayons and peel the paper off (kids actually love doing this and it can keep them busy for a while). Break them into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces and place them in cute shaped muffin tins. I found some really cute ones if you don’t have any at home. This heart shaped one would be perfect for Valentines day or you may like these super cute seashell shape. Once you have your old crayons in the muffin pan bake them in the oven at 250° for about 15-20 minutes.
Picture Frame Art – What better way to display a picture of your child or maybe one of their fabulous art works than by taking an old picture frame and gluing crayons around the edge! This makes a super cute teachers gift also!
Sandpaper Art – We really like doing the sandpaper art this week in our house. The finished product made for a pixilated look pushing this one to the top of our list for uses for crayons and it was pretty simple to do. Take a sheet of course sandpaper and color the whole sheet (make sure you color the background of your picture too). Once you have the whole sheet colored take a sheet of white paper and lay it over the top of the sandpaper. Then place a thin sheet of fabric over the top and iron over the top using the warm setting for 15-20 seconds.
Leaf Rubbing – Take your child on a walk and gather up different sizes and shapes of leaves. It’s really fun in the fall when you can grab different colors too. Take them home with you and place the leaves under a sheet of paper. Using the side of the crayon (you will have to remove the paper) rub back and forth over the leaf until you see the shape of the leaf on the paper. This is a great project to do when your child is learning the different types of trees at school.
These are just a few uses for crayons for you to try with your children. What other uses for crayons have you used in your home?
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