Solar Christmas Crayons

Today was a beautifully sunny day, cold - really cold, but calm, and sunny. A perfect day for solar cooking. And, escpecially so, since we had an extra turkey sized baking bag left over from Thanksgiving.

Since, this was our first go for winter solar cooking, we decided to try out a non-food item, and recycle some of our broken crayons. We peeled the crayons, and placed the broken pieces into small Christmas cookie cutters. I wrapped tinfoil around the bottoms of the cutters in an attempt to seal them. Then, we placed the cookie cutters into a round cake pan, and placed that inside of one of our spring form pans, covering it with the bottom of another pan.

Finally, we put the pans into our turkey bag, and popped them into the solar oven. Click here, read about the making of our oven.

We left them for 4 hours, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. They leaked a little bit, but not enough to ruin the new crayons. We let them cool for an hour, longer than necessary, and then attempted to pop them out of the cutters. They all came out successfully, except for the Christmas tree, which broke apart as we tried to remove it. We saved the pieces, so we can remelt them tomorrow, and try that one again.

However, it was exciting to see how well the solar oven worked, even when it was only a few degrees Fahrenheit outside. It looks like we could have a good season of outdoor cooking ahead. And, the little ones are thrilled to have a new set of Christmas crayons for some holiday coloring, in the meantime.

It's great to be a homeschooler.