Melted crayons

With school coming to a close for us we often wind up with a huge pile of crayons either broken or almost brand new. I have come up with a fun solution for this end of school problem that kids enjoy doing.  

You will need to remove the paper from ALL of them. I (not the kids) do this with a razor blade that I slice down the paper on the crayon to make it easier to remove. Then we sort them all out by color which makes it nicer for the kids to select from. I spray a mini muffin tin with a non stick spray or use some shortening. Then the kids break the crayons as they go and add bits and pieces of crayons into a mini muffin pan. I have found that the more inexpensive brands are more likely to stain the tin, so we only use the name brand crayons. 

I then put the tins into a warm oven, about 250* F and will remove them when the crayons are melted. Be careful when removing as the hot wax can spill and burn. Let cool completely before removing (do not use ice to cool as the crayons will crack). Turn upside down and hit on a hard surface like a counter top to remove. The best part of all is to see how your new crayons turn out!

One additional thing we do is to rub the top part of the crayon onto a piece of paper to flatten the edge a bit.