Yay for crayons…who do you know that doesn’t love coloring!!

 

If you say not you, what is wrong with you???!!!

 

Of course I’m kidding…

But seriously, I personally still LOVE coloring, and I try to color as often as possible.  I love coloring either a coloring sheet, and sometime to just grab some crayons and paper and make whatever I feel like is fun too!!

 

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Children and coloring

Children and coloring go hand in hand like many other great duos. Shaggy and Scooby. Tom and Jerry. Spongebob and Patrick. Lilo and Stitch. As you can tell, I love cartoons too!!! Hehe!! You see my point though? Children gain many practical skills when coloring. They develop and strengthen their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and focus.  Rainbow crayons are great for children of all ages, but especially younger ones who are not yet ready to use single crayons. Rainbow crayons fit great in the tiny palms of little ones, and are still versatile enough for older ones to use as well!. So the next time your child wants to just color,  let them, if has so many benefits to their overall development!

 

 

Did you know that coloring is beneficial to adults as well?

Do you like to color?  For adults, there are health benefits associated with coloring. Coloring can help reduce anxiety, relieve stress, and help with depression and anger. If you haven’t colored lately, you should pick up a new hobby!  There are so many amazing “adult” type of coloring books out now, it has become quite the trend.  Want to get in on the adult coloring book trend? Here are a few to choose from!

 

 

 

How it all started…

When I worked in a preschool classroom, there were so many, many many broken, peeled, tiny and even chewed on crayons.  It is what happens in this environment.  If you have children, I’m sure that you’ve encountered such instances with crayons around your house as well.  You normally collect all of the broken, peeled, tiny and chewed crayons and put them in the trash…Right?   They pretty much have little to no use…or do they?  Actually, they do!  You can use your old crayons to make Rainbow Crayons out of them!! Rainbow Crayons are fun and children will have a great time helping with the process of making them!

 

You could turn these…

 

 

 

Into these…with a few simple items!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make Rainbow Crayons: A Step by Step Tutorial

 

 

 

 

 

Supplies Needed:

1 6 cup muffin tin (I got one from the Dollar Tree, so I wouldn’t ruin my cooking one)

broken crayons

oven or toaster oven

 

STEP 1:

Gather as many colors of broken crayons as you can.  You want your rainbow crayons to be just that; rainbows!

 

STEP 2:

Peel your all of your crayons.  This can be a very long, tedious process, so if possible enlist the help of the children!  It is a great fine motor skill development activity for them as well!

 

 

 

 

 

STEP 3:

Break up the crayons into small pieces.  About half an inch should do the trick. Again, this process takes awhile, so have the children help you; as much as they can.

 

 

 

STEP 4:

Fill the muffin pan with the broken crayon pieces.  Try to get a good variety of colors in each cup, so that the colors are evenly distributed.

 

 

STEP 5:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. If you’re using a toaster oven, set it to 350 degrees. Toaster oven warm up much quicker than conventional ovens do, so if you have a toaster oven, I would highly suggest using that instead. It takes half the amount of time! Put the muffin tin in the oven or toaster oven.  I have used both before, both work great for making rainbow crayons.  I would suggest setting a timer for ten minutes.

 

 

 

 

STEP 6:

After the ten minute timer goes off, take the muffin tin out of the oven and let it cool for at least thirty minutes. You want to make sure the crayons are completely cooled off before you attempt to remove them from the muffin tin.

 

 

STEP 7:

Once they are completely cool,  you can carefully remove the crayons from the muffin tin using a sharp knife. They honestly come out of the muffin tin fairly easy, as long as they have completely cooled.

 

 

 

 

STEP 8:

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Done and done! Your Rainbow Crayons are ready for use! It’s literally that easy!

 

 

Rainbow Crayons are so fun and as you can see, and so easy to make!!! Beware though, once you make your children at home or in your classroom Rainbow Crayons, they will “accidentally” break crayons and bring them to you to save for more Rainbow Crayons.  This used to happen to me almost every day; that it got to the point that I had to gently remind all of the children in my class to be careful and take better care of the crayons.  I told them not to worry, we had PLENTY of broken crayons in our broken crayon bucket to make more Rainbow Crayons over and over again!

 

 

I hope you enjoy and use this step by step tutorial to make Rainbow Crayons to introduce into them into your classroom or home school soon!!

 

Happy Coloring!

Anitra J.

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