Crafty Mom: Hot Rocks
Since Green Mom is on maternity leave and hopefully taking some well-deserved time off, I thought I would do my inaugural post in honor of her and share a great recycled/nature craft that my girls and I did this weekend. I loved it because it incorporated two of my favorite things – getting outside and art projects. Hot Rocks. If you have a lot of broken crayons that you don’t want to throw away, you have to add this to your list.
You need:
Rocks
Broken crayons
The girls and I went outside and foraged for rocks that we thought were perfect – smooth, flat, not too big, not too small. This alone was a great activity that was perfect for my two-year-old and my almost six-year-old. I find that a rock three inches in diameter is about as small as you want to go because any smaller than that and they are a little hard to manipulate. Bring the rocks in, wash them up and then heat them on a foil-lined pan for about 15 minutes. I did them on 300 degrees and it worked perfectly. While they are heating, have the kids peel the wrappers off the crayons – this was my two-year-old’s favorite part. Once the rocks are hot, take them out and let the magic begin. You press the crayons right on the rocks, or draw on them and the crayons melt and blend together. Even I got into it. The way the colors swirl together is so fun to watch.
We used cutting boards covered in newspaper to protect the counter. The rocks are very hot (obviously) so please caution your kids not to pick them up and I don’t recommend this for very young children. That said, my two-year-old was able to participate easily and just in case, I had both girls wear winter gloves to protect their hands. We’ll definitely do this project again. I had originally seen this on a blog called Wise Craft.
Check out some of our creations.
You need:
Rocks
Broken crayons
The girls and I went outside and foraged for rocks that we thought were perfect – smooth, flat, not too big, not too small. This alone was a great activity that was perfect for my two-year-old and my almost six-year-old. I find that a rock three inches in diameter is about as small as you want to go because any smaller than that and they are a little hard to manipulate. Bring the rocks in, wash them up and then heat them on a foil-lined pan for about 15 minutes. I did them on 300 degrees and it worked perfectly. While they are heating, have the kids peel the wrappers off the crayons – this was my two-year-old’s favorite part. Once the rocks are hot, take them out and let the magic begin. You press the crayons right on the rocks, or draw on them and the crayons melt and blend together. Even I got into it. The way the colors swirl together is so fun to watch.
We used cutting boards covered in newspaper to protect the counter. The rocks are very hot (obviously) so please caution your kids not to pick them up and I don’t recommend this for very young children. That said, my two-year-old was able to participate easily and just in case, I had both girls wear winter gloves to protect their hands. We’ll definitely do this project again. I had originally seen this on a blog called Wise Craft.
Check out some of our creations.
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1 comments:
Very cool idea! I've never seen it done. Great way to keep the kids involved with an exciting craft. What a creative way to use up useless, broken crayons. They usually just get pitched. Thanks for the tip on gloves with your kids. I was wondering how involved they could get once the rocks came out of the oven.
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