Crayon chemistry...colors, recyling and matter

 It's not everyday the Piwi's can learn so much from one experiment or activity...color sorting, team work, recycling, States of matter...it was all here.

Playing with the new circle crayons

very hot!! liquid wax

Like most households with kids, we end up with a lot of neglected, broken crayons. I had saved them up for this project I had planned to do for earth day (recycling). The week of earth day also coincided with Miss K's chemistry unit.

I lined a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and set the oven to 200 degrees F, The  Piwis peeled off any remaining paper on the crayon pieces. After some debate, it was agreed that they would make multi colored crayons in different shades. So similar colors got sorted together into a cupcake liner. I just sat back and watched in wonder as Miss K helped Mini Piwi with her colors.
While we ate our dinner, the crayons melted down (I checked them every few minutes) and then popped the the freezer to cool.

When they were ready to use, Miss K went off and used them to draw and label and illustration of the solid wax turning to liquid (with heat) and then back again to solid (by cooling it). I had a diagram/flowchart worksheet ready to go but Miss K's idea was much better (and no doubt better learning for her!).