The execution of this experiment was a little flawed but we still enjoyed doing it so I wanted to share how you can do it BETTER than we did!
Melting Crayons on Rocks
Immediacy of results: Delayed
Prepwork needed: None other than getting materials
Time required: All day
Time required: All day
Materials needed:
Flat rocks
Crayon pieces
Step 1. Find broken crayon pieces around your house and let your child pick out the colors that they want to melt.
* Skinny Crayola crayons work best. Our experiment didn’t work that great because we used a mixture of crayon types and only the skinny Crayola’s melted really well.
Step 2. Let your child arrange the crayon pieces on the flat(ish) rocks.
* We put our rocks on a piece of aluminum foil because I thought it might help get the crayons hotter and I also didn’t want to have to scrape dried crayon off of our driveway before the next buyer came to look at the house. Next time I’ll use a cookie sheet instead of transportability.
Step 3. Admire your handiwork!
Step 4. Leave your rocks in the sun all day and check on them periodically to see how melted the crayons are!
* We had to move our rocks around to the front of our house in the afternoon to keep them in the sun.
This is another color combining experiment if you use the right kinds of crayons and let them get hot enough. You can also discuss temperature and state of matter (solid, liquid, gas) with this experiment.
I think this would also work in a low temperature oven and Play Create Explore has a version of melting crayons on a hot plate.
