{Recycled Crayons }




I’ve been looking forward to this project for awhile now for many reasons. 
  • I love to recycle
  • this looks like fun
  • my motto in life is “if it’s free, it’s for me!”
  • the teacher in me cannot help but notice all of the learning that is happening!

Over the summer I scored about 7 pencil boxes full of crayons at a tag sale for FREE! Originally I thought I would have to wait until Lucas was a little older to take on this adventure but we were home and the sun was shining so we gave it a go. And wouldn’t you know, it worked! 

Lucas was excited to see all of the crayons. He peeled about a dozen himself and spent the rest of the time looking at the colors, sorting them and comparing different sizes of crayons. It kept him busy enough so I could peel a few more. 

Due to the short attention span of my toddler, we waited until the next day to break the crayons and put them in the muffin tins. I used silicone muffin cups I got at the dollar store. You don’t have to put them in the tins, but I hoped it would keep them from getting dumped out and it did! 

We started off by sorting the colors, but Lucas had other plans. We ended up with 4 solid colors and 2 multicolor crayons. 

I had done this project previously and left the crayons in the oven too long so this time I wasn’t taking any chances. They went in the toaster for 12 minutes at 250 degrees. We let them cool for 30 minutes and then they were ready to go!

As you notice from the pictures, the original crayons didn’t melt completely. Next time we may leave them in longer. I figure I can make about 20 more batches of crayons with all these free ones so we have time to experiment. Another great thing about the silicone cups are you can throw one back in the oven if it breaks without using a whole muffin tin.


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