Preschool Craft Recipes - Crayons, Bubbles and Chalk

New crayons from old, two sidewalk chalk recipes and a great bubble recipe that you can use for creating your own giant bubbles - all made easily and inexpensively from inside your own kitchen. Children often have more fun playing with things they made themselves, rather than had given to them from store purchases.

Bubble Trouble Brew 

1 cup water

4 tablespoons dishwashing detergent

2 tablespoons Karo Syrup (light)

Mix all ingredients together and place in a shallow pan.

Tried and True Mommy Tip: Use wire hangers, plastic loops or thin, art wires to create bubble molds. Let the kids dip and blow their own bubbles or help them blow the bubbles. To thicken, increase the amount of dishwashing soap (should be the hand-washing soap, not the stuff you use in automatic dishwashers) slightly but this ratio should work well.

Recycled Crayons - Make Your Own Crayons Recipe

Broken crayon pieces

Aluminum foil

Non-stick spray

Line muffin pans with the aluminum foil and spray the inside of the cups with cooking spray in a thin coating. Take the small crayon pieces and place inside the muffin cups. Bake at 300 degrees until completely melted. Remove from oven, cool and take out of the muffin tins.

Tried and True Mommy Tip: These crayons end up being an easy-to-grasp circle or disk of crayon that is perfect for young toddlers still not adept at using regular crayons. You can put similar colored crayon pieces together, or mix and match the colors to create a rainbow crayon disk with multicolors.

Homemade Sidewalk Chalk 

1 cup Plaster of Paris (loosely spooned in, not packed down)

1/2 cup water

Liquid tempera paint (desired colors)

Toilet paper rolls (Tape one end closed with Duct Tape)

Put plaster of paris powder into a disposable container and slowly mix in the water. You probably won't use the full 1/2 Cup. Be sure you use a disposable stick to stir! Add 2 Tablespoons of tempera paint to create the colorful chalk and pour into the toilet paper tubes to create a large chalk stick.

Tried and True Mommy Tip: Mix the colored paint thoroughly into the plaster of paris or you'll have uneven color when you pour the stick. These chalk pieces can take 2 or 3 days to dry completely through so plan these ahead of time. This is a great craft to do with children on rainy weekend and you can tell them that they'll be able to use them later when they dry.

Eggshell Chalk Sticks

6 egg shells (washed and dried)

1 teaspoon VERY hot water

1 teaspoon flour

Food coloring drops

Grind eggshells into a powder and sift through a flour sifter or tea mesh to remove large chunks. Stir flour and water, creating a thick paste. Stir in eggshell powder and food coloring drops; mix well. Use wax paper to roll the paste into thin sticks and lay them out to dry for 3 days.

Tried and True Mommy Tip: We used to wrap them in paper towels to dry but found the paper didn't peel off well. I wrap them loosely in the wax paper and place them on a shelf in the kitchen and find they dry much better that way. Be sure you wash the eggshells well to avoid risk of Salmonella - I use eggshells from hard-boiled eggs to be sure any infectious germs have been killed.

With these unique recipes kids can create their own craft supplies and toys right in the kitchen (with your help) and feel a sense of pride in what they've created.

Comments

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Wendy Caffrey   |2008-12-02 19:31:03 These look like fun! I want to do the eggshell chalk first, I think.

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