Crayola Factory

I took the kids to the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA yesterday. It was on our summer to do list and we never got around to it. Chloe was super-excited to go, though she started complaining about the distance about half way through our hour long trip.

The factory itself is not really the factory and you don't really learn about making crayons. I thought there would be exhibits about crayon making, etc., but the place is more of a homage to crayons and all the cool crafts you can make using all of Crayola's products---which my kids were totally not interested in. They know what crayons can do and they weren't about to sit down after being in a car for an hour and make a craft. Here's our tour in a nutshell:

• Wanna make an owl puppet using Crayola school glue? NO!
• Want to use the modeling clay to make a sculpture? NO!
• Want to use crayons to color the picture of the leaves? NO!
• Want to use the sidewalk chalk to color on the floor? NO!
• Want to run like wild banshees through the building? YES!

Getting my two to sit down and create something just for the sake of making something? Not going to happen. They could do that at home. There were some exhibits and activities they did like---using the two coins given to you at the Crayola vending machines for a glow in the dark marker, writing on the glass wall using Crayola dry erase markers, the color dance wall and of course, the Crayola Factory gift shop where you could find every Crayola product ever made.

The trip wasn't a total bust as you also get admission to the Canal Museum along with the Crayola Factory tour. My kids loved the Canal Museum. You get to learn about canals by helping a canal boat go through the locks and dams in a small scale creation of a canal. I didn't get a photo of them learning about locks and dams as I was too bust trying to help Oliver get his boat through the locks and not flood the entire place out.
The Canal Museum was definitely the highlight and was lots of fun and both Chloe and Oliver loved it. There are also lots of other hands on activities with water, canal building, building blocks, etc. which I did manage to photograph.



Chloe at the entrance to the "factory".




In the Canal Museum learning about water flow, canals and dams.




Building blocks in the canal museum.




Chloe with the world's largest crayon!