How do you do crayons?

I need a new crayon plan. My girls love crayons, but they are making me nuts. Our current thing is to take the lids to their toy boxes (big plastic Rubbermaid containers) use them as trays, and color on the floor. Well, they fight over the crayons, walk off with them, sit on them, hold the crayons up to their body and get crayon all over their clothes, sit on each other's paper, fight over the paper. OK, I think you get the idea.
We do have a small toddler size table, but the chairs that came with it are not stable enough for them yet. I am thinking I need to limit crayons to high chairs only. Maybe do it before meals, pretend we're at a restaurant. What do you all do?

 

My babies are 14.5 months and the few times we've done crayons it's been with washable ones in the highchair. We have the FP chairs with 2 trays so I take off the top tray and give plain paper or a picture and a few fat crayons and it kept them busy for a while.

 

Hm. I think at that age it was pretty well controlled, but I'd mostly just tape sheets of paper to the floor and color with them. I think we didn't have the struggles you do as Jade had very little interest, while Melissa was/is just totally engaged by applying color to paper.

Now, a year later, they have open access to crayons and paper and we've had only a few "incidents" - thank god for the Magic Eraser!

 

At that age they sat at the table in the big chairs - at opposite ends of the table (if they were smaller I'd probably make them sit in their boosters, but the girls are really tall). We use washable crayons and they can only use the crayons at the table. They just got a little table and chairs and they've now been coloring at that. I've definately caught them going off the paper and trying to draw on the table - THANK YOU to the genious that invented washable crayons! :icon_biggrin:

 

We love the washable crayons! We mostly color at their toddler sized table, but sometimes I tape paper to the coffee table or floor or art easel... depending on the mood of the day. Natalie is very good about staying on the paper and using the crayons only to color. Gabe, however, likes to put them in containers, steal Natalie's crayons, hide crayons all over the house, experiment with drawing on other surfaces, etc. I try to stay with them when they have crayons, but sometimes I have to tend to the baby and I have left them alone briefly while they were coloring. We've only had two incidents and I caught Gabe in the act of drawing on the wall and floor and I was able to correct him by redirecting him back to the paper and giving him a warning that I would take the crayons away. Thankfully it washed right off, so it was a learning moment that didn't result in hauling out the touch up paint

 

washable, washable, washable...that's all I can say!!! My twins have access to a little plastic box that closes...we keep their crayons in that.... my older dd has access to non-washable crayons...more color choices and they don't break so easily... but she only uses them up at the table. The twins color down at their little table..

 

I had a similiar question - at what age did you start using crayons? We haven't gone there yet, and I thought about it the other day. Is the toddler table people are mentioning one with seperate seats, or like a picnic-type table?

 

We started using crayons around 16 months when we go out to eat and then slowly started using them at home as well. They have big pieces of cardboard that we put the paper on on the floor and I've stressed from the beginning that if they get up, they have to give the crayons to Mommy. Alexis usually gets bored with it after about 15 minutes, but Alana would sit there and color all day if I let her! Now that they have their easel, I need to go get some big paper to clip on there for them to color on.

 

We also have a toddler table with chairs that they can't quite climb off & on without falling over, but when I sit them on the chairs, if they really want to color, they usually stay put. They still fight over the crayons. It helps if I give each of them just 1 or 2. Then all I have to worry about is saying "out of the mouth" once every 5 seconds. I also tape the paper to the table. At best, this encourages coloring on the paper and not stealing each other's paper. At worse, they try to peel the tape off, which keeps them busy for awhile.

We had one great experience when I gave them the whole box of crayons and they occupied themselves beautifully for 15 minutes with taking the crayons out of the box and putting them back in, but that was a one-time thing. Now if I give them the whole box, they all get dumped on the floor, and leave little crayons shards all over the wood floor.

So my conclusion has been that if they really want to color, they will color. But if they're lukewarm about it, they'll start playing with the crayons, and then the crayons get taken away, and meltdowns ensue. It's not a perfect system. :blink:

We started using crayons at about 14 months.

 

Thanks for the responses. I think I'm going to try doing it in the highchiars. If anything, it will keep them entertained before meals.
This is the toddler table we have. The chairs are still too "tippy" for them right now.