Crayons
Crayons for little hands
Crayons are often the first drawing tool we give to our children as they don't take as much pressure as pencils and are less messy than felt tips.
Crayons are often thicker for little hands to grip in a palmer grasp.
If you don’t have any thick crayons why not try to tape a few together. Not only will they be easier to hold for little hands, but they will leave multiple rainbow marks.
Secret messages
Have fun creating secret messages with crayons.
Use a white or very light-coloured crayon to mark make, write a message or draw a picture on paper.
Water down some paint and brush it over to reveal the hidden message, marks or drawings.
You could try this on boiled eggshells – draw patterns on with light crayons then leave for 15 minutes or so in water and food colouring to reveal the pattern.
Taking the crayons for a drive
A fun idea for mark making and creating patterns.
Use masking tape to tape a crayon to the back of a car or vehicle so that it touches the floor as it is pushed. You could tape different colours on different vehicles.
Lay a large sheet of paper on the floor and take your crayon for a drive! You can see its journey marked out. If you don’t have any large paper, you could open up a large cereal box and use the inside.
You could draw or cut and stick on landmarks, houses or roads to drive along.
Use words such as fast and slow, ready, steady, go! and left and right to describe your journey.
Wax rubbings
For this activity you will need some wax crayons (thicker ones are often better) and some plain paper.
Go on a hunt around the house or garden and see how many different textures you can find.
Place the paper on top and rub over with the crayon to transfer the texture.
You could use the rubbings to create a picture by cutting out different shapes. For example you could do a rubbing of a house brick and cut it to make a house shape, what would look good as the roof?
Could you add trees in the garden by rubbing leaves and cutting and sticking them?
Recycle old crayons
Old, snapped crayons are not very inviting to use. Make your own new crayons by recycling ones destined for the bin.
Gather your old crayons – it doesn’t matter if they are different sizes or colours and ask your child to help you to snap them up. This is a good finger strengthening job.
Place the crayons into a mould suitable for the oven. You could put them in cake cases in a bun tray if you are worried about staining the mould.
An adult can bake them on a low heat until they have all melted. Allow them to cool and then have fun drawing and colouring.
If you have mixed colour crayons you will get rainbow drawings.
