Crayola Factory and National Canal Museum in Easton, PA

It turns out that the 4 hour round trip drive was completely worth it to go to the Crayola Factory and National Canal Museum in Easton, Pennsylvania. I was worried about not getting there until the afternoon (Emma has morning swimming lessons, another story altogether) because the web site mentioned being super crowded in the afternoons in July and August. Yeah. And it was, in fact, super crowded. So much so that at first I almost felt claustrophobic.


The deal is this. There are arts and crafts projects EVERYWERE Here is a list of what we did:
*Coloring pages at the massive circular crayon table
*Seahorse puppets
*Fish prints (a Japanese art technique apparently)
*Fingerpaint
*Color Wonder
*Crayon Rubbing
*Play with Model Magic clay
*Watch a bit of crayon making
*Paint a ceramic-y type fish (it wasn't exactly ceramic but it was a 4 inch three dimensional fish with tables full of water colors
*Sidewalk chalk
*Play in the little kids area
*Use these little tokens (part of your admission) to get a marker and a 4 count box of crayons
*Write on a plexi-glass wall with markers that wash off (I think they are actually called window markers)

Mary's tracing her hand here...she LOVES tracing her hands

You get this bag when you go in to put your stuff in and each girl had a full bag by the time we left. They had a blast. The more things cleared out the easier it was to relax and let them just hang out at the different stations without feeling like you had to hurry up and move so someone else could try. And this was just at the Crayola part.

Upstairs was the National Canal Museum. Apparently the only one in the country. It was super cool, very hands on. There was this massive replica of a canal with boats the kids could float along it and actually work the locks on the canals and stuff. Emma was a huge fan and we did that twice. There was also a big boat to play in, a tiller to try, a mule to harness (full size but obviously fake) laundry to wash in the washtub and all kinds of other stuff. Then there was yet another floor full of building toys: Legos, Lincoln Logs, cardboard bricks, etc. There was also a water table and a sort of sand type table but with something other than sand. We spent four hours between the Factory and the Museum. We ate McDonalds right there on site and I have to say that I quite liked the massive Crayola gift shop.

This is the canal replica, you can't feel the size of it from this measley picture

Emma was massively thrilled that the boat was named after her

When we were leaving Emma said, "Mom, that was so fun!" And so wahoo for me. Mary only yelled at me once so I'm calling it a thumbs up from her too. It's 10.00 a person for ages 3 and up so it can get pricey if you have a big family but I feel for sure like I got my 10.00 worth - a massive bag full of crafts and four hours of happy children.