This week’s Unplugged Challenge was Hot. I asked the kids what was hot and their first two answers were the Sun and fire. My first thought was to make the rolled beeswax candles but I couldn’t find the supplies in town and didn’t have time to order them so instead we had some Shrinky Dink fun.

I bought Shrinky Dink sheets that I could run through the printer. I let each of the kids pick an image of the sun (just ran a google search for SUN Coloring Pages). Then I printed the images and we colored them with colored pencils. When they were done I helped the kids cut them out and punched a hole in the top and we were ready to watch the magic unfold.

I put mine in the HOT oven first. It was a good thing we started with mine. It totally folded over on itself and melted into a blob. I think our images were just a bit too big (around 8×8). When the edges curled up they were a bit too heavy and completely folded. This added a bit more excitement to the process. Watching the others ones more carefully I had to intervene a couple times with a butter knife to unfold them. There was much squealing during the shrinking process – lots of fun!

Once their suns cooled, we made necklaces (or window hangings) with some yarn and wooden beads. We also made some ladybug buttons and other cute little things with the scraps.