Have you read the book, “The Day the Crayons Quit”? This is SUCH a cute book from the crayons’ point of view. They are TIRED of coloring the same old pictures the same old colors. Why does the Yellow crayon have to color the sun? And why can’t the Black crayon color a beach ball? We loved reading this book over and over again and coming up with our own take on mixing up the colors in a sensory art project using crayon shavings!
And, while your in the crayon theme, be sure to check out our resource on crayons for toddlers and preschoolers to support development of coloring as well as underlying skills using age-appropriate crayons.
We are super duper excited to be back at the Preschool Book Club series where we’ll join a few of our favorite kids activity bloggers and explore a fun children’s book every two weeks!
The Day the Crayons Quit sensory art
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We loved reading The Day the Crayons Quit
by Drew Daywalt so this sensory crayon shaving art was completely a hit in our house!
by Drew Daywalt so this sensory crayon shaving art was completely a hit in our house!
This sensory activity requires just a few items:
plastic sandwich bags
clear shampoo
crayons
permanent marker
and a small pencil sharpener
Use the pencil sharpener to make crayon shavings in the colors you want. This is a fantastic fine motor activity for little fingers. Twisting the crayons in the small pencil sharpener really works the intrinsic muscles of the hands. Not only are kids building the hand strength and endurance for writing and coloring tasks, they are using a tripod grasp to manage the pencil sharpener/crayon. It’s a resistive task that might cause hand fatigue for little ones, but not much crayon shavings are needed for this sensory activity.
Use the permanent marker to draw a picture on one of the sandwich bags. Fill the baggie with the shampoo and you are ready to get started!
Have the kids pinch the crayon shavings into the plastic bag. We tried to get the colors we wanted into the general area of the picture. So, instead of a yellow sun, we made ours purple and tried to get the purple crayon shavings near the sun in the picture. If they don’t land exactly near the part of the picture that you want them, it’s not a big problem, and actually a good sensory and fine motor activity to move the shavings around in the shampoo.
Press and push the colors into the part of the picture to make mixed up colors just like in “The Day the Crayons Quit”
Be sure to see all of the amazing activities based on The Day the Crayons Quit:
Writing Activity from Homegrown Friends
Crayon Box Craft from Buggy and Buddy
Follow Up Story from Mama. Papa. Bubba.
Paper Doll Crayons from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
Did you miss some of our other Preschool Book Club activities based on popular children’s books? Check them out and see all of our Preschool books and activities:
Little Blue and Little Yellow Puffy Paint | Elmer Color Learning Activity | The Kissing Hand salt dough charm
Love exploring books with hands-on play?
Grab our NEW book, Exploring Books Through Play: 50 Activities based on Books About Friendship, Acceptance, and Empathy, that explores friendship, acceptance, and empathy through popular (and amazing) children’s books! It’s 50 hands-on activities that use math, fine motor skills, movement, art, crafts, and creativity to support social emotional development.