Crayon Activities for Kids That Go Beyond Coloring

If your child loves to color, draw, and make things, National Crayon Day on March 31 is an easy way to make the day feel special without adding more to your plate. In this episode, Charlene shares simple, colorful activity ideas and creative product picks that make it easy to turn crayons, markers, and drawing time into a fun invitation to create. Whether your child loves coloring books or needs something a little more unexpected, this episode is full of ideas to help you make the most of a playful, low-pressure day. 

What You’ll Learn

• Why National Crayon Day is such an easy win for parents
• How to make coloring feel fresh for kids who do not love traditional coloring books
• Reusable coloring ideas that give kids more than one round of play
• Creative products that work well for drawing, coloring, and hands-on fun
• How prompts and unusual surfaces can make art time more inviting

Episode Breakdown

• Why March 31 is a great excuse for a colorful activity
• Girl Scouts-inspired scented markers and gel pens
• Color-your-own pajamas from Uncommon Goods
• Crayola Light Ups recolorable spring characters
• Melissa & Doug portable art easel for on-the-go creativity
• Art Dice prompts from Two Tumbleweeds
• Creative Crayon’s Workshop tablecloths, runners, and placemats
• Final reminder: kids sometimes just need an invitation to create

Key Topics Covered
National Crayon Day activities, coloring activities for kids, reusable art toys, creative drawing prompts for kids, portable art easel for kids, Crayola creative toys, color-your-own pajamas, scented markers for kids, family art activities, easy kids craft ideas

Who This Episode Is For

• Parents of kids who love to color, draw, and create
• Parents looking for easy holiday or themed activity ideas
• Families who want simple art play ideas without a big setup
• Adults looking for creative products that can work for family use too

Links & Resources Mentioned

• Tonies Crayola Art Adventures Clever Set
• OOLY X Girl Scouts collection
• Fairy Tale Pajamas from Uncommon Goods
• Crayola Light Ups Recolorable Chick 
• Melissa & Doug Take-Along Double-Sided Tabletop Activity Art Easel
• Art Dice from Two Tumbleweeds
• Creative Crayon’s Workshop coloring tablecloths, runners, and placemats

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Transcript

National Crayon Day Is an Easy Excuse to Make the Day Feel Special

If your kid loves to color, draw, and make things, then you definitely want to pay attention to March 31st because it's an easy excuse to make the day feel special and colorful.

Hey play pals, welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to talk about National Crayon Day, which is on March 31st. And I actually think this is one of those fun little calendar moments that is very easy to use as a parent, right? You don't have to throw a party. You don't need to think about a whole lesson plan.

You just need that excuse of a day to get your kids to play with crayons, markers, that sort of thing. It gives you that moment to slow down and say, today we're going to do something colorful. We're going to draw, we're going to color, we're going to make something.

So I pulled together a few toys that I think work really well for that. And I'll even go and say not every single thing is technically a crayon product or a toy per se, but there is play and they all fit that same spirit of creativity and color and hands-on fun.

Girl Scouts-Inspired Markers and Gel Pens by OOLY

So the first one I want to start with is really cute, especially if you are a Girl Scout, knew someone who was a Girl Scout, Girl Scout, all the things, because it's the OOLY X Girl Scouts collection.

They have a whole bunch of things in this collection. We're talking stickers and pretty much anything you can possibly create with, but I'm going to stick with the markers and the gel pens to stay on that Crayon Day theme. Even though they're markers and gel pens, again, you get to color with them.

They're cookie scented. So the red one is like the Girl Scouts chocolate peanut butter cookie. And then the green one, of course, is like Thin Mints. And then the yellow one is lemon and the orange one is peanut butter. And the purple one is the coconut caramel, which happens to be one of my favorite Girl Scout cookies.

So it's fun because you get scented markers, but it's not just berry or grape or whatever it is. It's actually tied to a Girl Scout cookie. So I think that's really fun.

So definitely check out that line. I think these are perfect for National Crayon Day.

Fairy Tale Pajamas from Uncommon Goods

So the next one I want to mention is the Fairy Tale Pajamas from Uncommon Goods because it's such a clever twist on coloring.

These are pajamas that kids can actually color on. You can see, I think they have a dragon version as well. They also have pillowcases. Their product line changes a little bit, but they usually have some sort of fabric coloring thing. But I really like the pajamas. The clothes are so cute.

I believe at the time of this episode it's a 4T, 5T, and a size 6, but hopefully we get more. I mean I would even like adult-size ones, to be honest with you, but isn't this cute?

And then you get wash-out fabric pens to be able to color them. So kids actually color their pajamas any way they want and then they get to wear them. But then when you throw them in the wash, the markers come out and then they get to do it all over again.

So decorate, wear, wash, do it again. I mean that is one of the best things that really stands out and why I love it because it is something that is interesting, especially for kids who have a hard time sitting down with a coloring book, right?

Not every kid wants to do that. There's something about it. They just don't like it, and they don't want to do it. But now, if they get something unexpected to color on that is not your carpet or your walls, it feels different. It feels novel, and it feels like they're designing something.

It's just another play pattern for kids who maybe don't like that traditional play pattern. And of course, it's reasonable, right? So they're not doing this once and then it's over. They can color it again and again and again. So I always appreciate anything that gives you more than one round of play.

A Recolorable Light-Up Chick from Crayola

Now another one that kind of fits that more-than-one-round-of-play vibe is this Crayola product. It's the Crayola Light Ups Recolorable Chick.

It feels especially good for this theme because yes, it's Crayola, National Crayon Day, we all know Crayola. But of course, National Crayon Day falls on March 31st, so it's around spring and Easter. So they have a bunny and they have this chick.

But the idea is they get to turn it on and light it up. So it becomes like a little nightlight, but then they can wipe it down, do a new design, light it up again. Again, it's fun because it's not final. They get to color, enjoy it, try it again, do something new, repeat.

And then they also get something that they can use outside the coloring activity as well. So if your child likes some different surfaces to color on, this is more than just a drawing. It's more like a display creative project. So really, really love that.

A Portable Art Easel from Melissa & Doug

All right, another one is, of course, I feel like I would be remiss to not mention them, is Melissa & Doug.

They have this Take-Along Double-Sided Tabletop Activity Art Easel. It's creating the coloring opportunity on a vertical surface, right? You can lay it flat, but you can also have it upright. So I think that helps a lot of kids who need to color differently.

I also really like it because you can take it along with you. So you want to go outside or you're going to Grandma's house, going to the beach, the park. Now you have something to bring with you. You're not wasting paper in doing so. And then you also have the ability to store it easily.

So I know they have this really big easel that our family has had for a very long period of time, but it's big and it takes up a lot of space. So this is great for people who have smaller footprints and maybe you can't even keep it out. So close it up, put it underneath something, you're good to go.

And then it's double-sided. So if you have two kids, one can be on one side, one can be on the other. Or again, it just gives them almost a little play station, which I think is great. So it has a lot of things that you need in it. It has the easel, it has some templates, it has just a lot of things to help your child get prompted to play as well as get prompted to color and create.

So love that one, especially for National Crayon Day.

Art Dice from Two Tumbleweeds

So the last two products I want to share with you that I don't have samples in front of me, but I'm going to give them some honorable mention.

Art Dice from Two Tumbleweeds can be found on Amazon, but I love it because sometimes the hardest part of starting to color and create is just figuring out what to make, right? Whether you're an adult or a kid.

And so the Art Dice solve that by giving you prompts. You roll the dice, there’s two, and depending on what one lands on and what the other lands on, it helps you get guided. Like the subject, the style, the mood, the setting, the color, right?

So instead of staring at a blank page and feeling stuck, you have direction. So I think it's really, really helpful for kids. And again, I love that for National Crayon Day because it turns coloring and drawing into a little bit more of a game too.

Coloring for the Whole Table by Creative Crayons Workshop

Another one is Creative Crayon’s Workshop. She makes coloring tablecloths, runners, placemats, and it's just a really fun thing where you can almost create a whole tablecloth, cover the whole table, and now kids are actually sitting down at dinner but also coloring at the same time.

You could even put it vertically up against a wall so kids can color and walk by all throughout the week too to color. And then I really like the placemats and I even like the runners even for adults too.

We don't talk about coloring and creativity for adults, and there's actually so much science behind how that takes a lot of stress off of us. So even though it's designed as a placemat, I love putting it on your desk so you could be doodling if you're on a call or if you just need five minutes to decompress because you had a bad meeting.

Just sitting there and coloring is so helpful to make sure that our brain is in the game as well as our kids too.

Final Takeaway

So that's it. Let's put something colorful on the table. Let's offer some fresh activities for our kids and remind ourselves that kids don't always need entertainment. Sometimes they just need a good invitation to create.

If you want to mark National Crayon Day on March 31st as something especially good to do, pick one of those products above and run with it. Just choose the one that best fits your child and let that be the inspiration and the activity.

So that's it for today's episode. Hope that gave you some ideas. And if you liked this episode, please subscribe, like, follow, all the things that I'm supposed to tell you, but I appreciate it.

And of course you can find me at PlayroomChronicles.com or on social at @PlayroomChronicles.

So until next time, happy playing and happy creating.