Wonderful Washable Colouring Fun (Crayola Kids First Large Washable Crayons)

Member Name: ButterBear

Product:	Crayola Kids First Large Washable Crayons
Date:	11/07/08 (109 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Washable

Disadvantages: Pricey

I've always been a bit of an artist and have encouraged my children from a very young age to be creative, to use their imaginations and be expressive. Colouring books, drawing pads and crayons are a great way of stimulating a child's creativity but can raise the problem of scribble happy toddlers covering your home in their doodles and I'm not talking about the "pin the artwork on the fridge" fashion.

Crayola Large Washable Crayons are chunky wax crayons which come as part of an expanding Crayola Washable range. They are designed to provide the same bright colours while being easily washable from household surfaces. Each crayon follows the traditional Crayola style, its body wrapped in a sheet of paper indicating its specific colour, they are non-toxic meaning they are safe for youngsters to use and there's no need to panic should an over zealous toddler bite off a chunk of their favourite shade. An 8 pack of the crayons will cost in the region of £1.99 and comes with the following colours- blue, carnation pink, red, yellow, blue violet, blue green, green, and brown, these give you a good range of basic colours which will allow you to draw nice pictures without feeling too restricted by colour choice, however for more freedom with colours you'll need one of the larger cartons, packs of 16 and 24 are also available, as well as packs of regular sized crayons in the washable variety.

My little ones Christopher and Elsa are 4 and 2 years old, and while my 4 year old is pretty in control of his colouring my 2 year old simply takes delight in large swirls of bright colour. I've always tried to make sure they know that the drawing must stay on the paper and generally they're very good at this however you simply need to turn your back for a few minutes and Elsa has decorated the table, television, wall........whatever surface she happens to be nearest, Christopher did similar when he was the same age and I found myself having to take the crayons away and only bring them out for strictly supervised periods, I didn't want to have to return to this so washable crayons are quite a live saver in this respect, they allow me to leave the children playing creatively, giving them a feeling of independence and responsibility while I can get the housework done, knowing all the while they're having fun and not destroying the living room.

The crayons are a great thickness for smaller hands, even Christopher can find the regular thin crayons a bit fiddly, but these chunky ones mean that toddlers can get a good grip of them allowing them to draw freely, they're also less likely to snap them which is a problem I always find with regular sized crayons. I thought the washable aspect of the crayons may effect the colours of texture of the crayons but they are just the same as regular crayons, vivid in their tones and applying easily and evenly to the paper, they don't take any extra effort in order to get an mark on the paper which is great considering the limited strength of a 2 year old.

Fortunately we don't get too many crayon incidents, for now anyway, but on the occasions when Elsa has decided her artwork would look better on my dining table or TV screen I've found the washable crayons are genuinely washable. Ok yes regular crayons are washable from certain surfaces like gloss painted walls etc... but from more porous surfaces such as unvarnished wood (like my coffee table!) you can never completely remove the stain and it takes an awful lot of cleaning product and physical effort, however with Crayola washable crayons all you need is a warm damp cloth and a minimal amount of elbow grease, depending on how hard the marks have been made of course! The colour also washes out of clothes easily not requiring soaking or stain removal products, I have been unlucky in the past to have purchased crayons that have left marks on my little ones clothes which I've never been able to remove, but you don't have that worry with Crayola washables.

My kids love to colour and draw and while £1.99 for 8 crayons seem like a lot it balances out when you consider the amount of work you'll save yourself from cleaning up drawings from where they shouldn't be and the money you'll spend on extra cleaning products. I have a selection of many different crayons and have always found that Crayola provide the best quality and variety of colours, what I would recommend though is sticking with a range of cheaper, standard Crayola crayons for when you can easily keep an eye on your little ones and the washable ones for when you may just end up a little distracted, after all it only takes the phone to ring, baby to cry, postman to call...........any small thing to take your focus away for a second, and believe me a second is all they need to create chaos!

Summary: Highly recommended for stain free colouring and drawing