Long before Crayola ever contacted us about being on their board, we have found ourselves buying a LOT of their products. And not just crayons, pens etc. I find their various themed kits to be great time fillers and peace makers in our house or away on trips, visits etc.
Granted the odd products we have tried have been a bit of a bust or caused frustration in impatient or not yet ready children…but all in all the Crayola track record is good in the House of Crunch. And being that Crayola keeps their price point pretty low, it isn’t TOO painful when one of their art projects goes awry.
Needless to say the kids were all over the next package of Crayola sent to us.
In this one we had…
From past similar purchases, we knew this one would go down well. Even a Mr. Cool Video Gamer Eight year old has been kept fairly quiet with this one. It is Star Wars after all and the 3D colour effects are really fun to see develop before your eyes. His only complaint was that the 3 D Glasses didn’t seem to fit as well as the one’s that had come with the 3D Sidewalk Chalk, so he used them instead. These type of products are great to pack for vacations and so on. Compact and tidy and a bit of a novelty without mess. (6+, $12.99)
The next and GIRL focused product was the NEON Colour Explosion TINKERBELL set. My daughter was at first a bit overwhelmed by how detailed the drawings were that she was supposed to colour..but once I helped (such a TERRIBLE sacrifice to be colouring quietly with my daughter!!), she was delighted by the effect and felt much pride in the care required to stay in the lines etc to maintain the desired effect with the dark behind the bright pens.
For girls who love to colour, AND love fairies..this is perfect….a big hit. (5+, $10.99
AAND for the younger crowd, though we feel for a crowd a wee bitty older than Tara.. was the Colour Me A Song. (24 months+, $24.99)
While Tara does like this..she is as happy with it without crayons (she eats them) and paper. And even Caity and I were a bit frustrated by the paper..it is really hard to get the paper to STAY on the board when SCRIBBLING…it needs something better to hold the paper on.
My baby does love music though and being that she can happily pound at it and make the music faster or slower has had more staying power with her tiny attention span that I thought it would. I was thinking about this product…and it isn’t expensive. I think if they wanted to develop it more into something truly electronic and pricey they might not get the buyers..but it would be cool if the music only played when the child actually touched or drew on the page and wasn’t warbling away already. The older kids were baffled by this and I had to get them to really scribble hard to notice a change in the musical beat.
I think this toy may need a few more go arounds developmentally..but regardless…it is being played with by Tara every day so it can’t be that bad!
Those products look like a lot of fun! I’m a HUGE fan of Color Wonder Markers myself! Have a great week 🙂