July 22, 2011

Hot Car Crayons

"Boy, was it hot out today"

"How hot was it?" (the crowd answers in a sing-song voice)

"It was sooo hot, that we were able to make these melted crayon molds... in our CAR!"



Can you believe it?  Like so many other parts of the nation, we're in the middle of an incredible heat wave.  Our temperatures today here in Maryland hit 103F with a heat index of 117F!!!  While I was trying to keep cool inside with the kids, I remembered THIS awesome idea for melted crayons at Our Forever House.  (I found it on Pinterest, where else?)  

Here's how we did it:

I set my kids to work peeling the wrappers off some crayons (the Crayola ones seem to work best for melting).  We broke the peeled crayons up and put similar colors together in this silicone mold.




I put the mold on a cookie sheet and took it out to our van.



I set the tray with the crayon mold on the dashboard, and we went back inside the house to wait.




We came out a few times to check on them...

After about 20 minutes

After about 40 minutes




After about an hour, they were all the way melted.  I actually had to use potholders to carry the tray back into the house.

Pretty cool, huh?




I put the mold in the fridge for a few minutes to speed up the cooling process, then popped our new crayons out.  (NOTE: There will still be wax residue on your mold, so you'll want to save it for crafts only from now on!  I usually use the dollar store ones for crayon molds, and save my "nicer" ones for food stuff.)

Check back soon to see what we do with them!



{ NOTE:  As fun as this little crayon project was, I think it makes it all too clear how incredibly hot the inside of a car can get on a Summer day.  Always make sure your children and pets are NEVER left alone in a car. }

Posted by at
Labels: ,

42 comments:

  1. Too cool, I am going to surprise Olivia tomorrow (6 1/2) with this activity! She loves art and doing "science" projects so this will be perfect :D Are you still able to use your mold for food or it is just for crafts now? Thanks for your wonderful blog!

    ReplyDelete

  2. What a perfect activity to do in this heat wave! I think we'll make some Hot Car Crayons over the weekend. Great idea! Thanks for sharing!

    Happily following you from It's Playtime! I would love it if you would stop by my blog and say hi, and maybe consider following me! :)

    Mandi
    http://boredombustingmommy.blogspot.com/2011/07/attack-of-pom-pom-monsters.html

    ReplyDelete

  3. Wish we could take some of that heat for you. Pacific Northwest could use some drying out. Love this project!

    ReplyDelete

  5. Great learning experience of why we don't play in the car when it's hot outside. Not sure it'll get that hot here but I can't wait to try it.

    ReplyDelete

  6. Wow! What a cool idea! We live in New Mexico so that would be a perfect project for us!

    ReplyDelete

  7. It has been hot here too. I never thought though to do something like this to turn the heat into fun. What a creative idea!!

    ReplyDelete

  8. hahaha shows you how hot the car gets! a good way to save on electric... now if only it could bake other stuff haha

    www.tootsiewootsieboutique.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

  9. Great idea! Our consistent 110 degree days here in KS will work well. Let's all hope for a cool down soon!

    ReplyDelete

  10. Love it!

    I would love for you to share this mommy solution on my weekly meme.

    http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2011/07/the-mommy-club-share-your-resources-and-solutions/

    ReplyDelete

  11. So cool! Better than the melted-crayon stains in our minivan when I was a kid! LOL

    ReplyDelete

  12. It is incredible how hot it gets in the car. Way to make use of the heat in a fun way - and yet educational for the kids to learn about how hot it can be. Way too much like an oven!

    ReplyDelete

  13. next up - fried eggs on the sidewalk :) We've been in the '90s and 100s all summer here in Central California. I feel for ya, our weather here is downright mild compared to yours right now.....

    ReplyDelete

  15. You always post such great ideas! Love it!!

    ReplyDelete

  16. I love, love, love this idea -even though I have teenagers! Since I live in Seattle, I would have to have a tray handy because you never know when a hot one will strike :) Well, actually we have a soccer tournament coming up down in sunny Oregon -perhaps I will take a tray along then! Thanks for sharing this fun idea.

    ReplyDelete

  17. great idea! my kids would love this! i've been planning to make crayons this summer-not i can add this in!!

    ReplyDelete

  18. What a "cool" idea! ;) Love this...we'll have to give it a try. (We have WAY too many broken crayons around here!)

    ReplyDelete

  19. This is a great idea. I need to get some of those small silicone molds. I did a similar thing with Madison but we used a muffin tin in the oven. Who wants to use the oven when its so hot? Not me!

    ReplyDelete

  20. Who woulda thought??!! Great idea - thanks for linking up!
    Toni

    ReplyDelete

  21. This is one of the best links I've visited all day. I'm so glad I found your fun blog! I'm going to list it on my list of kid activity blogs.

    I would LOVE for you to link this up at my Link Party, Once Upon a Weekend on my blog Family Ever After. The party starts on Fridays and lasts all week.

    Here’s the link if you’re interested:

    http://familyeverafter.blogspot.com/2011/07/once-upon-weekend-link-party-1.html

    Also, if you have a list of favorite link parties, I’d love to be included on Fridays. Thanks a ton! Have an awesome day!!!

    ReplyDelete

  22. Oops, I gave you the wrong like. It's really this: http://familyeverafter.blogspot.com/2011/07/once-upon-weekend-link-party-2.html

    ReplyDelete

  23. This is t5he cutest idea ever, and I live in AZ so I'm sure it would work! Also great for the preschoolers I teach! I'm a new follower, and I'll be passing this activity along to the other teachers. Thanks for linking up :)

    ReplyDelete

  24. Thanks so much for the shout out! I love that you tried this fun project. It is amazing how warm your car can get! Great blog!

    ReplyDelete

  25. great project! and yes, a great reminder of how dangerously hot a car can get! thanks so much for sharing on Craft Schooling Sunday!

    ReplyDelete

  26. I like this idea but it shows just how hot cars get! They melted in less than an hour???? WOW.

    ReplyDelete

  27. I'm so honored that you chose to join the Creative Bloggers' Party & Hop. Thank you for adding this special masterpiece to rock my party :)

    ReplyDelete

  28. Love this post! It is so hot here I am totaly going to try it---especially since I had to have a talk with my little boy who was dying to stay in the car yesterday while I ran into the store. It looks fun and it will be a good lesson to!
    Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

  29. Oh---sorry to leave another comment but I was going to ask---did leaving the metal pan there on the dashboard melt or leave marks on the dashboard? Did you put a towel or hotpads underneath it?
    liZ
    (simplesimonandco)

    ReplyDelete

  30. Hi Liz!

    I didn't leave a towel or anything under it and didn't notice any mark, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea. Actually, the main reason I used the cookie sheet was so the mold with the melted max wouldn't accidentally tip and spill liquid crayon on the dashboard or front seats. If you used a towel underneath instead, you'd still be able to prevent spills and you wouldn't have to worry about possibly marring your dashboard.

    ReplyDelete

  31. the kids must have been so impressed! And how smart to not use the oven on a hot day, but the hot day itself!

    ReplyDelete

  32. Now that's a summer bucket lister! Great idea, Laura. Here in Chicago, when I was a kid, we used to try to fry eggs on the sidewalk. Going to pin this so I remember to do it with the boys next year...

    ReplyDelete

  33. So cool! We will definitely be doing this before summers end!

    ReplyDelete

  34. Wow! Now that's HOT! I've been meaning to do the melted crayons to make new crayons craft for a while now....but I think we'll do ours in the oven! :-) Although- perhaps we should turn it into an experiment and see if the crayons will melt with our temperatures. Great idea!

    ReplyDelete

  35. Laura, once again.. YOU ROCK! What a FAB idea!

    Thanks so much for sharing this post at For the Kids Friday at Sun Scholars. I loved it SO MUCH, that I've featured it this week. Stop by and grab an A++ button, and share with us again! YEAH! :)

    http://sunscholars.blogspot.com/2011/07/for-kids-friday-21.html

    ReplyDelete

  36. I really am wanting to eventually make some of these!

    ReplyDelete

  37. You can use different colours, too. It looks funny to paint with them.

    ReplyDelete

  38. I would love to try this with my daughter. Love your blog too...bookmarking it. :)

    ReplyDelete

  39. this is a really good idea to use up all those little pieces of broken crayons that get collected over the years

    ReplyDelete

  40. We did this today and it was only about 70 degrees out so I wasn't sure if it would be hot enough but sure enough just a few hours of being in the car and they were melted. Thanks for the great idea!

    ReplyDelete

  41. Is there anyway to do this without having a hot car? I am in Illinois and it's pretty chilly now and my 3 year old is having surgery to get her adenoids and tonsils removed and the doctor advised us that we have to keep her as inactive as possible to reduce the risk of bleeding and infection. I have been looking around for arts and crafts for her to so and I love this idea but it's not hot enough. Can we use the oven on a really low setting maybe?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Definitely, Nicole. We just did it in the hot car as a novelty. Doing it in the oven at about 250* will work just as well. Good luck (and I hope your little one has a quick and easy recovery.)

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...