Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Mommy, Monet and Me! Letter C

 Crayons, Carpet, and Corn Syrup

This week at Mommy, Monet and Me we had such a great group of toddlers learning about the letter C!  We created art with color changing crayons, made carpet prints, and painted with colored corn syrup!

Color Changing Crayons

Materials: Old broken crayons, muffin tins

Making your own color changing crayons is really easy. You basically just take old crayons and melt them down in muffin tins or any other kind of heat proof mold.  Once the crayons are melted you let them cool and they become solid again.   Here is a link to the specifics on time and temperature for melting.

TIP: Soak your crayons in hot water to remove the paper, instead of trying to peel each crayon individually.  I don't know why I never thought of this before, but it worked like magic. 

TIP: Find an eager little helper to help you smash the crayons!  I put the crayons in a thick plastic bag and then let my niece do the smashing. She loved it.

Carpet Prints
Materials: Carpet pieces, paint, rollers, tray, paper.  

Kids get really excited when you tell them they get to paint on carpet.  It seems like they are breaking all the rules.  You can get carpet scraps or samples from local carpet stores.  This activity is more fun when you have a variety of kinds of carpet.   We used paint rollers to apply the paint to the carpet squares and then pressed the painted side onto our paper.  The results are pretty cool.  When you are done you can wash the carpet squares in the sink and leave them in the sun to dry and use again.



Corn Syrup Painting


Materials: light corn syrup, food coloring, paintbrushes or q-tips, cardstock

To make corn syrup paint simply combine a small amount of corn syrup and food coloring in a container.  You can use a paintbrush or q-tip to apply the paint to a thick paper like card stock.  The paper needs to be thick to handle the syrupy paint. 

Why paint with corn syrup?  When it dries it stays shiny.  It swirls together beautifully without getting too muddled and brown.  It is totally edible...for those little ones who like to put everything in their mouth.  It washes off surfaces and hands pretty easily with a little warm water.  The food coloring can dye clothes so better to wear a smock or strip them down and let them get messy!

Hope to see you next week for the letter D!

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