WOYC21: ARTSY THURSDAY- We made Crayons!! Here's How...
It was a gorgeous, perfect day today… Most of our time was spent enjoying the outside and celebrating the good weather!
But your Common Ground Office Friends had a silly, fun, totally “Artsy Thursday” inspiration that we absolutely had to act on.
We decided to turn our GIANT TUB of broken, old crayons into new, tie-dye crayons in totally whacky shapes!
Ms. Mimi had seen the idea during one of her Teaching courses last week, and we LOVED it! Ms. Liz ran out to Michael’s to get some fun molds and we went to work! See below for pictures of our process and results!
Peel the crayons. If you want to make this process go a little faster, soak them in water! the wrapper comes right off.
Chop them up! They don’t need to be uniform. We used scissors (poor scissors!) and made a bunch of tiny chunks. Leave some of the chunks bigger, we’ll explain why later!
We used silicone molds with all sorts of different shapes! They can go in the microwave, the oven, and the freezer, so they’re perfect.
Place a layer of crayons in the molds. fill it up! When they crayons melt, they’ll shrink. Since these will completely melt and mix together, we advice complimentary colors.
Place in the microwave. 1-2 minute intervals should do it.
Once the wax is completely melted, place one of the larger chunks in the center of each mold shape. It will create a marbled look with the other colors you added. This color can be as different from the other colors as you like! You can also add another layer instead.
Put it into the microwave for a little bit longer, and then when you’re satisfied put it into the freezer until it’s firm and cool.
We got a uniform back onto the crayons by melting one or two colors into cups and then pouring a layer of wax into the molds once they had firmed up a bit in the freezer.
The result is, dare we say it, ADORABLE and totally functional! We gave them out to all of our students, and we have so many leftover crayons we plan on letting them make their own combinations in the future! It was such a bright, happy way to recycle our old crayons that no one seemed to want. Some of our kids did not even want to color with them! We had a couple of our Honeybee Students play with their robots like toys.
WOYC21: Our Playful Pandas are Living it Up
All week we have been celebrating “Week of the Young Child” with the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and it has been a TOTAL BLAST.
Ms. Pinky and Ms. Simi in the Playful Pandas have really taken this opportunity to flex their incredible teaching muscles and show the world how much education really happens in play-based learning.
On Music Monday, Mr. Josh stopped by to play a little concert for each class. The Pandas got to play instruments and sing along to practice rhythm, patterns, and cause and effect! They also got to sing their heart out and dance the morning away.
On Tasty Tuesday our Pandas Teachers went above and beyond! Ms. Pinky and Ms. Simi presented their students with all different fruits. the kiddos got to touch and taste each one, then they took turns placing them into the blender. They even got to press the little blender button, much to their surprise and delight! Afterwards they placed the smoothie mix into little popsicle makers. While these froze a little more, the pandas got to try their concoction. At the end, they got to eat popsicles they made themselves. It was a step by step, multi-sensory science experiment that ended in a tasty treat!
Work Together Wednesday was quiet, cold, and rainy. But our Playful Pandas teachers had their kiddos build large, technicolor castles together. At the end, they all picked up the mess one piece at a time. Teamwork, patience, social practice. All these essential building blocks to emotional resilience and independence can come from something so simple.
Artsy Thursday is maybe my absolute favorite, and a perfect example of why kids’ art needs less guidance and more trust from teachers. Ms. Simi and Ms. Pinky put out paint, string, and paper. Then they stepped back and waited. The result was absolutely incredible. These one year olds stepped up, picked up the yarn, and began goofing around together. They splashed colors around, they shared, they made art. If we had walked them through step by step, it would have been a project. It would have been uniform. This was creative expression. This was pre-writing, fine-motor work, and independent experimentation. This. Was. Brilliant.
PLAY TO LEARN. LEARN TO PLAY. LEARNING IS JOY. Thanks for celebrating with us, Pandas!
Stay tuned for more wonderful ways our classes celebrated this week!
