Exactly how many crayola colors are there?
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2009
1
9
12
Trip End
Jun 28, 2009
Easton, Pennsylvania
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Crayola fun factory is attached to a canal museum and a parking garage is across the street from both attractions. The parking garage was $2 an hour, which originally seemed pretty good, but between lunch and seeing both attractions we ended up spending 4 1/2 hours there. In actuality, we hate spending money on vacation for things like parking, but there is really no way to get around it, especially when the attractions are in "city-like" locations.
We began our Fun Factory experience with a demonstration on how crayons and markers are made. The demonstration was given behind a plexi-glass wall where all the different machines used to make the items were housed. All the molds were extracted and each step was explained in the process. In addition to watching the demonstrator, cameras were installed next to each machine and you could view what was happening on two television screens on each side of the "stage". The demonstration was good for adults, but I felt that the most kids had tuned him out within 5 min. The kids did get a freshly made crayon at the end of the crayon presentation. Despite this little perk I thought my kids were getting a little restless, although Anya told us that out of everything there, she liked the demonstration the most (go figure). On a side note, Max's favorite part was being an ant (?). This requires a little explanantion because we were a little baffelled ourselves; when you walk around the factory there are picture cut-outs, one happened to be of an ant and Max stood behind it to take a picture. This apparently was the most exciting/memorable event of the visit. The wonders of the 3-yr-old mind!
When we picked up our tickets at the entrance we were given 5 tokens for each child. These tokens were to be used for some crayola vending machines outside the demonstration area. In total each child put in their token and received a specific crayola item (markers[3] and crayons [4]). We proceeded to the first area,which consisted of a section to use modeling clay, an for 5+ to use melted crayon wax (the wax was diffent colors, but was very hot), and an area for fabric art that required the purchase of a $10 t-shirt to design. The modeling clay area was fun and the kids spent a lot of time here, Max enjoyed this area which was helpful because it did not take too much effort to distract him when we took the girls to the "wax" area. The "hot wax" area, for lack of a better term, was decent, but it was in a partitioned corner of the room so that little kids could not get in. This area was a little cramped between the kids and the adults and there was a little waiting involved so that you could get to all the provided colors in the area. Each child and adult (if you desired) received a different shaped paper to color ( heart, butterfly etc.) To be honest, I love participating in these projects and I took a paper for myself (the first time through with Anya), but I am well aware that it is a projest for the kids not for me. Unfortunately, I found myself waiting with the kids for a color because of a parent who was trying to create the next great masterpiece of the 21st century (oblivious and totally emersed in "their art"). It was a little ridiculous to say the least.
Each child received a bag so that they could collect all their art work thorughout the factory. It was a good way to keep track of who made what, although Anya and Sophia were very much aware of which projects they made and were always looking over Dad's shoulder to make sure that everything was placed in the proper location (I wonder who they got that from?).
The middle area consisted of a sidewalk chalk area and a very cool light pen section where the kids could draw on these white wall pads with glow with green light pens. Again, depending on how crowded the area was you would have to wait for a pen. We are usually pretty conscietious about how long our kids are taking with the equipment and try to move them along to a new area, but the kids enjoyed this section nonetheless.
The last section consisted of: puppet-making, sponge painting, finger painting, gluing, and graffiti projects. The gluing projects, such as the puppet and catepillar were a little different from what we would do at home because they provided the children with boxes of interesting designed and textured paper. The finger-painting section (of course daddy was assigned Sophia (5) and Max (3) for this one) was fun. Don't worry there are smocks and low sinks and soap to wash afterwards. Finger painting always starts off great,but quickly digresses into "how much paint can I put on this paper?" What began as an identifiable object (or at least a rorshach image) is a sopping, drippy page of paint. Now, the fun part, transport the drippy page to a drying machine,while dodging little kids and parents, who also have drippy pages. The odds are against you that you will not reach your destination without 1) being run into by a child or parent 2) running into anothers child or worse another parent. Anya was doing great until another parent ran into her...after she had very carefully and meticulously painted without soiling her clothes..she was not pleased to say the least.
The drying machine is a slow go because everybody carefully and SLOWLY puts in their papers in ONE AT A TIME. I put the papers in two-by-two (what a novel idea), the guy next to me said, "hey that's a good idea" (do you think?)
The factory was fun, the kids had a great time. Upstairs was the National Canal Museum, which is designed to teach kids about of course, canals. The highlight is a 90 foot canal waterway that the kids got to drive their plastic boats through, operating the canals. Actually Mom and Dad learned something about how the canals worked as well. The rest of the museum consisted of play areas and science centers teaching about levers/pulleys and other "canal" related things.
Since we drove 2 hours to get to Lehigh Valley, we decided to drive to the next town over, "Historic Bethlehem", just to check it out. Unfortunately the streets must indeed be historic, as Stella(as greg has affectionately named our little electronic friend) had trouble navigating us to the downtown area. When we finally found where we wanted to go, it appeared there wasn't much for the kids, although if the adults were alone we may have parked and ventured out.
It may have been interesting to see the Moravian BookStore, the oldest continuelly operating bookstore in the world(well we did drive by, so we "saw" it) . Alas, "family" vacation events are not always chosen by the adults!
Number of Crayola colors: 150
