Ask and You Shall Receive: Crayola Castles & Cathedrals.

c/o Jackie Jouvenal. 

c/o Jackie Jouvenal.

c/o Jackie Jouvenal.

c/o Jackie Jouvenal.

Hi Jacquelyn:

Saw your Crayola Cathedrals at White Flint and LOVED them! Families who went to see the show came back and raved about them, too! Same with the fishies... you guys had an awesome two panels! I was so inspired as a first year teacher.

Hope it's okay that I'm attempting to borrow your idea... trying them out with third grade right now... but how did you adhere the crayons to (what looked like) mat board? Regular Elmer's? Hot glue? Any additional tips?

THANKS SO MUCH,

Kristen Dudley
Galway Elementary

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Hi Kristen,

Glad you liked the display. Thanks so much. I had the kids paint a piece of cardboard either blue or black for their background. The first day they painted their background and sketched their design idea on a separate piece of paper. The second day they drew their design on the painted cardboard and filled it up with old crayons.  We attached it with regular elmers glue, but the wrappers need to be on the crayons.  If there is no paper wrapper on the crayon it will pop off. The last few days they cut out rose windows and pointed arch doors out of paper and glued them on. They also added suns, stars and grass to the background with oil pastel. Hope you enjoy it!

Jackie Jouvenal
Art Teacher
South Lake Elementary

Our take:

We approached our Crayola Castles & Cathedrals slightly differently than the kiddos at Southlake Elementary. Because our expensive, awesome watercolor paper was the only thick, substantial paper I had in abundance (because I had been saving it all year for something truly special... which never really came along), I decided to go with watercolor backgrounds.

• On Day One we looked at and discussed a PowerPoint on gothic architecture and designed and painted the watercolor backgrounds. 
• Day Two we drew an outline for the cathedral/castle and began to glue the broken crayons down (provided trays of Elmer's that they dipped the crayons into). 
• Day Three we finished gluing down crayons and made doors, rose windows, etc. 

The kids LOVED this.

Added bonus? Great way to clean out your crayon bins... goodbye broken nibs and off-brand crayons! One downside: you need a TON of broken crayons to do this. I teach three third grade classes, averaging twenty-five students per class. Even with broken crayon donations, I did not come up with enough to complete this assignment with all three classes. It was a huge letdown... especially because I did not realize I would come up short on crayons and all three classes did the backgrounds before I realized that I was only going to be able to do it with two out of three classes. Ms. Kristen-Crayon: The Queen of Crayondom Disappointment :(