Melting Into Spring

 For this lesson, we created colorful spring creatures from melted crayons. I started with a large piece of wax paper, a variety of crayons without the paper on them, and a file. I used the file on the crayons to create small shavings, which I scattered on the right side of the wax paper. I used many different colors. When the right side of the wax paper was covered with shavings, I folded the left side over so my shavings were between the two layers. Then a hot iron was placed on the wax paper for a few seconds. This melted the crayon shavings. I created two different pieces of art in this way. I then traced a template of a butterfly on one and a caterpillar on the other. I cut them out, glued them on construction paper to create a border, and decorated them with permanent markers and oil pastels.

To extend the learning from this lesson, the class could learn about life cycles in science. The class could "adopt" a caterpillar, watch it grow, and follow its life cycle until it becomes a butterfly. They could journal about the changes they see and predict what will happen next. When the butterfly comes out of the cocoon, students could release it onto the playground.