As the school year ends and school supplies come home our house gets cluttered. We have multiple packs of pens, half-used notebooks, and extra crayons everywhere. I feel torn and unsure, should we throw everything away or keep it? I don’t want to throw them away but I can’t stand the overflow of school supplies. This year I decided I was going to try to find a few ways to put our old school supplies to use!
Old Markers to Water Colors
We had a few sets of markers come home. We keep set at home for homework too. So when I tried to add the makers that came home with my kids it didn’t fit in the container. I decided it was time to go through them.
- Checked to see which ones were running out of ink.
- Then, I took those and put them in a container of water.
- I let them soak for a few hours and now I have some watercolors!
How We Used the Water Colors
We used these watercolors to create a fun game. I glued cotton balls onto paper. For the youngest that was it. For the middle, I put color dots under each cotton ball he matched and used an old medicine syringe to color the cotton ball with that color. Lastly, for the oldest, I put sight words under each cotton ball. I called out the sight word and he soaked the cotton ball with that sight word. When they were done they ended up mixing colors and water play!
Crayons to Rainbow Crayons
With two kids in school, we have a lot of crayons. They seem to multiply by the minute! I hate throwing them away because they can still be used but we don’t need 6 red crayons. I decided to melt them to create new crayons.
*This cute printable coloring page is by Tiny Hearts 808.
- Soaked them and peeled off the wrappers. The wrappers come off easily when you soak them.
- Broke them into pieces and put cupcake liners in a cupcake tin. I planned on having the boys sort them by color groups but it didn’t go as planned. Jake wanted to help and kept mixing colors up. It still turned out pretty with all colors swirling together!
- Place oven at 220 degrees F for 20 minutes.
- Let them cool then peeled off the cupcake liners!
Tips for Making Rainbow Crayons
- If you use a metal cupcake tin be sure to use cupcake liners or they’ll stick to the pan.
- Fill them up because when it melts it won’t look like as much. But don’t fill it up past the rim because if they overflow or you spill them when you’re taking them out it’s a pain to get it off the cupcake tin.
Hopefully, these ideas will help you to bring life into all the school supplies coming home!