W is for Watercolor

I tried out a tip from Pinterest for the letter W: diy watercolors. I'd noticed in our supply room that we had a huge bucket of markers just sitting in the corner, waiting to be thrown out. When it came time to plan for our "W" week, I was scrolling through Pinterest for ideas and came across Artopotamus' (via Apartment Therapy) idea to use dried out markers to make watercolors. We had the usual watercolor trays but as usual, the colors were all mixed together and there was more brown than anything else. So I grabbed a few handfuls of old markers, put them top-down in plastic cups filled with water, and let them sit for an hour.

By the time we were ready for our "W is for watercolor" page, the water had become really bright-- except for red, which I forgot to fill up, so it was more pink than red. Once dry, the colors were really pretty pastels. It worked so well that after the W page, I let them create another watercolor. But first I gave them white crayons and let them draw whatever they wanted on the page. Then we used the watercolors to bring out the "magic" drawing, which they thoroughly enjoyed. The kids had fun layering the colors and making oranges, greens, and purples. Surprisingly, no one ended up with an entirely brown picture!