Crayon Copy Paper

This craft idea from Steve and Ruth Bennett's 365 TV-Free Activities You Can Do With Your Child, can be a fun history lesson, too.

Have your children color in an entire sheet of paper, with crayon. Meanwhile, you can tell them the story of what life was like in the days before printers, and photocopiers - back when people had to use messy, ink covered sheets, called carbon paper, between pieces of white paper, in their typewriters. Then, you can spend the next while trying to explain what a typewriter is.



Once they have the paper pretty well colored in (we found dark colors worked the best), turn the paper over, and lay it on top of a blank sheet of paper.

Then, draw with pencil, pushing hard, on the back of the crayon, colored sheet. For younger children you might want to tape the papers to the table, so they don't slip around, while they are drawing with pencil.



When they are finished drawing, remove the top sheet, and they will find a duplicate copy of their drawing, on the page underneath.



My children liked, that they could use one crayon copy sheet more than once...



...and, that they could layer several sheets of crayon copy paper, and white papers, to produce more than one copy of their drawings.



Just like the good old days, but without all the ink on your fingers.

It's great to be a homeschooler.