Indoor Fall Fun, and Melted Crayon Rocks

This week's theme is Fall Leaves, and on Wednesday, we were supposed to go outside to rake leaves and crunch in them. Unfortunately for us, it was raining. Instead, I went to the porch and found a small pile of dry leaves, and put them into a tub for Conrad. I also put Reece into his high chair, and gave him some to play with. The Following are the Pictures I took from the leaf play! :)

Our bucket of Dry Leaves

Conrad decided to play in them with his shovel. He also buried  some action figures in them.

Reece had a blast. Conrad decided to give him a shovel as well.

I had to add this one. Reece was very proud of the leaf on his head! :) Silly Reece!

Melted Crayon Rocks

When I found this project on  this website, I knew instantly I was going to try this with Conrad! :)  Since it was raining again today, our plans for crushed leaf art got spoiled. Here was my chance to try out this project.

To make these beautiful works of art, you will need the following items:

• Old crayons with the wrappers removed (or new crayons, longer crayons work better for the kids)
• rocks of all shapes and sizes ( works better with rocks that will fit in the palm of your hand)
• Aluminum Foil
• A Towel
• A cookie Sheet
• An Oven

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cover the Cookie Sheet with aluminum foil. Wash the rocks and lay them out to dry.

Once the rocks are dry, lay them out on the Cookie Sheet, and put them in the heated oven for about ten minutes.






To prepare your work space,  lay the towel out on your table and  place a layer of aluminum foil over it.
Now, you are ready to have some fun.  Using an oven mitt, grab a hot rock or two from the cookie sheet, and set them on your work space. Place the cookie sheet with the rest of the rocks back in the oven so they stay hot.

Take a crayon, and "color" on the tops and sides of the rocks. If you are doing this project with a child, make sure they know how hot the rocks will be, and have an ice pack on hand for just in case. This picture shows Conrad creating one of his rocks.

Let the Child experiment with color mixing, and designing whatever they want. Here Conrad is letting the white crayon melt over the top of his already colored red/orange rock. when you finish one rock, pull another one out of the oven, and start again! :)

Here you can see our finished products as they are drying. As you can see, we decorated some rocks with patterns, and other rocks, we just let the crayons melt their own path. These Rocks can be used for any number of things, including: decoration, game pieces, and gifts. Use your imagination, and enjoy! :)