Hot Rock Art

Just a few days of school left and I'm trying to use materials

that are already in the classroom.

So I pulled out our warming tray, rocks and crayons.

The children put mittens on to prevent any surprises with the warmth off the tray.

Since the rocks are already warm the crayon begins to melt right away.

Is this art or is this science?

A bit of both and a whole lot of fun.

Starry Night #3

                                   Next was my favourite.
       We grated crayons on to paper then placed it on a warming tray to melt.

We used the mini cheese graters to make little bits of crayons.

It melted easier and quicker then using the whole crayon.

Plus it was a lot more fun.

We used a stir stick to make the swirls and blend the colours.

The child in the above picture loved this activity and made several.

He layered his colours.  First melting one colour, taking it off and adding more.

I like the 3D look to this method.

Melted Crayon Eggs

We've used the warming tray to melt crayons before but today we did one step before that to decorate our paper eggs.

We used our tiny cheese graters to make tiny pieces of crayon. 

 Then set the crayon covered paper egg onto the tray and watched the crayon melt.

We also set chunks of the crayons on paper on to the warming tray.  When they started melting we used wooden coffee stir sticks, tongue depressors and chop sticks to spread it around and  make designs.

Two handed method works well.

Warming Tray Crayon Art

Look at the art work that happened at our centre today.

I think these are the most beautiful pieces of art work that I have ever seen.  It's the glossy shine that they have that I appreciate the most.

We used warming trays, big and small, to melt crayons on paper.
I pushed the table back against the wall so all the cords could safely be out of the way.  I had quite the concern of someone getting burnt during this project.
Watch how this little guy quickly understood what was happening.

Mom encouraging him to hold the crayon in place to begin the melting.

Once he figured it out mom got into it herself.

Adding more colour and sometimes laying the crayon flat.

The smaller mug warming trays were a little trickier and they sometimes needed assistance to hold the paper in place.

We did learn where was the safe place to hold on.

Although he learned from experience that when the crayon melts that wax is still hot.  Ouch to his fingertip.
We used tools to help move the melting crayons around or to make designs.

We also noticed that the colour separated from the wax and the wax spread much farther than the colour.

We will definitely do this art exploration again very soon.