Little Difference #24 - Colored Pencils
I thought kids' week would be a good time to share a kid related Little Difference. This difference involves art supplies, namely the absence of crayons. Around here colored pencils seem to be the coloring device of choice for young people. For example, at restaurants children are given colored pencils to use instead of crayons. Some coloring books are sold with small packs of colored pencils. But the dominance of colored pencils is most obvious at stores in the school supply section. Today I counted 44 different types of coloring utensils for sale. Only 3 of them were crayons. The rest were colored pencils and markers. Different for us Americans, no?
I thought kids' week would be a good time to share a kid related Little Difference. This difference involves art supplies, namely the absence of crayons. Around here colored pencils seem to be the coloring device of choice for young people. For example, at restaurants children are given colored pencils to use instead of crayons. Some coloring books are sold with small packs of colored pencils. But the dominance of colored pencils is most obvious at stores in the school supply section. Today I counted 44 different types of coloring utensils for sale. Only 3 of them were crayons. The rest were colored pencils and markers. Different for us Americans, no?
Using crayons seems like a developmental milestone for children in the U.S. First toddlers start with the thick jumbo crayons, move to the regular sized ones and at some point dream of owning a 64 pack (with a built in sharpener.) Speaking of 64 colors, check out the color chronology chart from Crayola. I totally remember Maize!
9 comments:
this is so fascinating. I remember just salivating over the 64 packs when I was a girl (we live in California) and getting one for my birthday! You are right about crayons being a milestone in America.
I almost feel like colored pencils require a finer motor skill...and thus a little more patience...are kids artistically patient overseas? I would be interested to know.
You know that's really interesting. At my kids' montessori school it's a milestone to move to colored pencils at age 4. They carry 3 at a time on a little tray and they are PROUD.
Can't wait to read comments from your other readers...
You know, now that I think about it, most of the "free time" drawings that come home from my daughter's school are done in marker -- definitely not crayons. We received her first grade supply list, and while it is lenghty, crayons are not a part of it. There is this ingenious little thing called an astuccio here that is used to keep all of their supplies together.
I likely blog about that when we go out on the school supply search in September.
I entered this site by chance, but I found very interesting. A greeting to all the people who visit this page.
ohh the crayon memories. it was so interesting to read through the crayola site. I like the old names of most of the crayons way better then something like "razzberry" which I find too strange - but then changing the name of "flesh" is probably a good thing :)
I started my oldest daughter out on crayons, but she kept eating them, so before she was 2 I switched her to colored pencils. What a great day that was. Now my youngest daughter, who is almost 18 months uses pencils as well. Recently, we have started using crayons more, now that my oldest is older. I like pencils better, as they are less messy when we are out and about coloring, like at church.
Also, I was just reading in an old French magazine I received when my oldest was born, and it had an ad for French baby food. The first was Green beans, Carrots, and Veal with cream and the second was Small vegetables with salmon and parsley. Hmmm. Not sure that either of those would fly in the US. Ah well.
As a Brit, I remember having a big pack of Crayola but by school I was using pencil crayons too and felt tipped pens but they weren't popular at school because they soak through the cheap paper. I just had a looks at some of my old school books, it looks like my first year I was using crayon and the next year pencils.
In Japan...oil pastels are more popular than crayons or pencils, in fact the kids have a box of oil pastels for kindy/school and they colour so much better than crayon, beautiful thick rich colours - sorry Crayola but if I were 5 again I would be snubbing you for oil pastels! What is next to impossible to find here is finger paint, in fact paint in general is hard to get hold of. I can get little artists tube but not the big 1l tubs so the kids can go made with the paint.
German reader chiming in ;-)
We use pencils, too. We do have crayons, but ours look a lot different to the american crayons. They're not usually wrapped in paper but come in a plastic tube (http://picture.yatego.com/images/44fbe05606be97.4/2003_Wachsmalstifte_10er_Euti_wassverm_V.jpg)
In restaurants you sometimes still get little packets of tiny colored pencils and a big sheet with a picture to color. Some restaurants used to have the kids menu printed on one side of that sheet, too.
My son had bock crayons in school once, Organic beeswax things, super expensive, they were kind of nice to use but man! 16€ for a pack of I think 12 when you pay maybe 3€ for the regular crayons. The teacher said she prefers those blocks because the kids can also play with them.... Srsl, for 16 bucks I'll buy them some wood blocks along with their crayons...
Love your 'little differences'. I think everything you've listed is the same here in Austria. Cute girls and crafting!
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