There’s nothing quite as satisfying as a crayon straight out of the box. The point on a new crayon makes it easy to color in all the small places, and it’s the perfect length to comfortably hold. But as we all know, young artists can whittle the point down to a tiny nib quickly or accidentally break the crayon in two after a particularly enthusiastic coloring session. Indeed, classrooms around the country are peppered with these colorful rejects – and most of it ends up in the trash. But the teachers at the Kenneth L. Rutherford Elementary School found a creative way for students to make use of these broken crayons.
On Valentine’s Day, the kindergarten classes assembled in KLR’s multi-purpose room to recycle these crayons into gift bags for child patients and senior citizens at the Catskill Regional Medical Center. The students first rhythmically beat bags of the crayons into colored dust and then worked together to fill silicone molds with the remnants. After baking these molds, the broken crayons transformed into new crayons in fun shapes like letters and hearts. Then, students finished off the activity by creating cards for the recipients, before bagging the crayons into individual gift bags.
“I think it will make the people at the doctor happy,” said one kindergartner as she glued paper hearts onto construction paper.
“Yeah, it’ll make them feel better,” said another.
