Dear Forest Friends Families,

Today’s activity is making recycled rainbow crayons– a quick and enjoyable way to make use of excess amounts of crayons for a pop of rainbow fun! This activity can strengthen fine motor development and sorting skills, reinforce the importance of reusing for our environment, and involve color scavenger hunt games! In addition, attached is me reading Mister Seahorse, by Eric Carle, to top this colorful exercise with a colorful story.
Here’s a photo showing how they’ll turn out, and I’d love to see the ones you all make. Send them my way!
Directions: 
1. Peel 20-30 crayons, kids love to help with this!
2. Break them into smaller pieces, 1/2-1 inch.
3. Spray your muffin pan with cooking spray and fill each baking cup with crayons.
4. Place the muffin tin in the oven preheated to 275 degrees F
5. Bake 7-8 minutes.
6. Let cool completely. Then color!
Hope you enjoy! Below are the descriptions of this activity’s learning opportunities and the Mister Seahorse video.
Much love,
Teacher Sarah
Learning opportunities: 
Fine motor skills: the first step to recycling crayons is peeling the rappers from the crayons. This strengthens finger muscles and hand-eye coordination. I’ve seen kids get really hooked on this part of the process, too!
Color sorting: when all the crayons are peeled, you can use your muffin tin as a sorting table. You can ask children to sort by colors of the rainbow (in the example below) or have them make patterns.
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Color scavenger hunt: when the crayons have been broken into smaller chunks and are just about ready for the oven, you can play a color scavenger hunt game. For instance, ask children to find 3 reds and 2 yellows, or 3 colors from the ocean, or 3 colors from the forest, etc.
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