Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Where Did We Go Wednesday? Crayola Experience


I had the opportunity to go along with my son on his field trip to the Crayola Experience at the Mall of America last week. Crayola Experience only gives so many chaperone passes and I was not picked to be one of those but they allowed additional chaperones to come along for $9 a piece which is a bargain when you consider that the cost of admission is $19.99 a person. My sons admission was covered by the school so I didn't have to pay for that so for two of us to go for that price to check it out is a good deal. I really wanted to see what it was like because my kids have been asking to go but considering that it would cost $60 for me to take both of them I wanted to be sure it was worth the cost because $60 sure can buy a lot of crayons. Just to note you can buy a season pass which is unlimited admission for $29.99 per person or $99.99 per family. The next time we go, and there will be a next time we will be buying a season pass. Unlike other season passes we get this is a for-profit company so our season pass is not tax-deductible.



We were there for 3 hours on the field trip and managed to get around to all but one area. Some of the areas we had to rush through because we wanted to try to get as many as possible. I am not sure I could even pick out what my favorite area was. There is a lot to do here. You end up leaving with many projects but there are still even more areas that are just physical play or they are a digital type of area.

In the picture above you can see the crayon ring I made. That is in one of the areas and you get to choose between three different wax Creations, one of which is a ring. In that same picture you can see my son is watching his crayon drip and melt into his creation.



This next picture is a good example of some of the large motor skill play areas as well as digital areas. Same with the bottom picture which is two pictures of my son and I in a digital area where it appears like crayon wax is dripping over us. 

There is a couple of shows to watch while you are there. They are live shows. One of them shows how a crayon is made from start to finish and at the end they give them a red crayon which is what they are demonstrating being made. The other show was demonstrating the scientific properties of silly putty. Both shows are performed at various times throughout the day. So you are sure to be able to find one of them that fits into your schedule.

Besides getting a red crayon from the one show there is also another area where you get to name your own crayon can you pick out what color you want and put whatever name on it you want. So between the crayon mold, the show and the name your own crayon area you will leave with three crayons.

There is also a puzzle making station and a painting station and a hot wax Spin Art station and a hot wax painting station. You will leave with projects from all of those if you do them. There is also a station for Model Magic clay that you can do. This station as well as the crayon naming station take one token each period we were given a token for each one for each person when we arrived. They do have a station where you can buy more tokens that is by the Model Magic dispenser. The Model Magic dispenser gives you one color of Model Magic clay / token. Tokens were two for a dollar.

There is also two big play areas with slides and tunnels and monkey bars that kids can play in one is geared towards younger kids and one is towards older kids. There is also area where there is a huge Lite-Brite to play with. The number of digital areas is probably about a half-dozen of them. I didn't do those as much because there is only so many stations and we had so many kids that were wanting to play that the adults just watched in these areas

There is a Café there and they do serve a variety of food but we had brought bunches. I'm not sure if they allow you to normally carry in food or if they only allow this for school groups.

I am sure I am missing telling you about some area or private we got to create but as you can see there is quite a bit to do to fill your time.

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