Crayola Factory

On Martin Luther King Jnr Day, Rebekah wanted to study for her mid-terms and we needed somewhere for the other kids to have fun and blow off some steam - so we headed to Pennsylvania and the Crayola Factory! We love this place, but haven't been for a while. I think it's the perfect winter day trip. It's about 2 hours from our house (less in good traffic), and all indoors. The place is huge, with lots of bright, well lit rooms with different craft activities in each one. The kids can get creative and make as much mess as they like, and I don't have to clean it up. Like I said - perfect!

First up, we spend about 15 minutes or so watching them make crayons and markers. Emily was really interested in this. The other 2 just kind of ran in circles and peeked in occasionally.

Then, it was onto the fun. You have to be over 5 to use the melted crayon painting, so Emily and I did this one.

My kids all LOVE model magic. We definitely spent most of our time in this room.

This one we called the "High School Musical" room. A big screen on one side, with varying effects for the kids to dance in front of and see their shapes / shadows. The red girl in the middle is Emily.

Jane was REALLY into it. She starts to move whenever she hears any kind of music, and has since she was itty bitty - so cute to see her dance.

Jacob loves to cut, but scissors at home are a rare commodity since he gave Jane 2 haircuts! When we made collages he did a lot more cutting than gluing.

Painting with watercolors.

Color wonder markers.

There are also lots of coloring stations with crayons (of course) and some huge glass screens that they can color on with markers that I didn't get pictures of. Also, a toddler room with a ball game and other stuff that all 3 of them enjoyed.

We spent 4 1/2 hours there. They probably could have played longer - but Jane was starting to meltdown. They are not stupid there's a big Crayola store there, but it's separate from the factory, so if you wanted to avoid it you could. We stopped to get some more art supplies for home, and pick up a few things for bek.

We stopped at a local restaurant for dinner, cleaned them up in the bathroom, and headed home. They fell asleep in the car, so all we had to do when we got in was pop them into bed. A great day.