Color pencils for Dover and Bellapheron coloring books - Prismacolors or Crayola?

[LNC]

They color during read alouds, but I'm afraid they will wear down our precious Prismacolors too fast! Do you use Crayolas for coloring books and save the Prismas for art projects?

[Satori]

Good question! We have been using only Prismacolors, and I think I totally spoiled my 4 year old dd on them. She loves to color and they're wearing down fast and just this week I was going to see if there's a quality medium in the middle that isn't as expensive and wears down as fast as the soft Prismacolor pencils.

 

We did just color with crayons tonight at a restaurant, but at home she won't touch them. Hopefully someone will reply with some actual suggestions. :)

[orangearrow]

My kids use a mix of Prismacolors (they each have their own sets - a medium set of "colors", plus the skin-tone set, plus a watercolor pencil set) - and regular Crayola crayons, markers, etc.

 

If you're talking about Crayola colored pencils, though... they are really awful. I tried and tried to make those work, but the leads break all. the. time. and really frustrated my kids. Which is why they now have their own Prismacolor sets, lol. I buy them at Michael's with a 50% off coupon when it's available. :001_smile:

[radiobrain]

I still vote for the prismacolors. The cheapo colored pencils are more frustrating than they are worth. I would also like to say that I think that the "scholars" PC pencils are not very good. They break too easily.

 

A different suggestion is a set of plastic crayons from http://www.barebooks.com they are very nice to use, cheap, don't look or act like crayons and can be sharpened just like a pencil. Plus this company has excellent blank books.

 

Korin

[Susie in MS]

Prang is a good middle grade.

 

http://www.allartsupplies.com/item.php?articleId=1981

 

I think my dd found hers at Walmart craft section or Hobby Lobby.

[abbeyej]

Crayolas and Prangs *do* work okay for things like that. Yes, Prismacolors are nicer, but I'm with you -- for everyday "coloring" (as opposed to when kids are really focused on "doing art") -- Crayola and Prang are fine. Their colors go do fairly smoothly and evenly, and the colors are reasonably rich.

 

RoseArt, on the other hand, may be the cheapest stuff out there, but it's also the most over-priced. Totally worthless art supplies...

[atozmom]

We recently bought The Crayola Twistable Colored Pencils. They color so much better than the regular colored pencils. (almost like a crayon) And there is no sharpening. Just twist up and go. I think they were $6.00 or $7.00 for a pack of 30 at Walmart. We'll never use the regular pencils again.

[mamaof2andtwins]

I find Crayola very hard to sharpen well. When I found Prang, I was hooked for every day use. Even my kids who have Primsacolors use Prang more often.

 

Jennie

[Nicole M]

We use Lyras. They're expensive, but not as pricey as Prismacolors. They are excellent quality, too, and last forever.

 

http://www.treehollowtoys.com/lysutrcope.html

 

These are the longer ones. For smaller hands, we used these:

 

http://www.treehollowtoys.com/lyshtrcope.html

 

I threw away all our other colored pencils once I found these. My youngest is 12, and he still uses his Ferbys. We won't need to replace them for another year or so, and at that time.

[Mom2boys]

We recently bought The Crayola Twistable Colored Pencils. They color so much better than the regular colored pencils. (almost like a crayon) And there is no sharpening. Just twist up and go. I think they were $6.00 or $7.00 for a pack of 30 at Walmart. We'll never use the regular pencils again.

 

We have owned these for about a year, but have found that the leads break easily. Almost every time my kids have dropped a twistable colored pencil, the lead has broken. :glare: Either large pieces of lead fall out, which I have to throw away, or the lead breaks into little pieces which stay in the pencil and jam it, rendering the pencil unusable. Last week I gave up on the Twistables and bought Prismacolors (with the 50% off coupon at Michaels).

[atozmom]

We have owned these for about a year, but have found that the leads break easily. Almost every time my kids have dropped a twistable colored pencil, the lead has broken. :glare: Either large pieces of lead fall out, which I have to throw away, or the lead breaks into little pieces which stay in the pencil and jam it, rendering the pencil unusable. Last week I gave up on the Twistables and bought Prismacolors (with the 50% off coupon at Michaels).

 

 

Wow. Thanks for the heads-up. We have not had this problem, but then again, we've only been using them for a couple of weeks now. I guess I'll be saving up money for the others. I'll be watching for that 50% off coupon as well!:001_smile:

[Satori]

Yeah, ditto on the Twistable Crayolas, they break and then are no good in their little containers.

 

I have some of the Lakeshore Learning colored pencils, they said on the package they were "good quality", but when you color with them, all this crappy stuff builds up on the page, ick. I'll try out both the Prang and Lyra Super Ferby Triangular Color Pencils, as I've been meaning to check them out anyway. :) I'll give them all our little color test and see how breakable their leads are. :) One thing I don't like about Prismacolors is how easily they break. (So far I've gotten my Prismacolor Pencils on Amazon for half off more or less.)

[tarana]

We used Crayola erasable twistable(8) in pre-school & then the Croayola regular twistables (24) in Kindergarten & 1st grade. Only one crayon broke in 2 yrs usage at home.

 

After the good experience with the Crayons, I bought the Crayola twistable color pencils(30) for school use. Have not opened it yet.

Again for school use I don't want to buy an expensive set & really tired of my girls constantly shapening pencils.

Are there any other manufacturer who makes twistable color pencils?

[Mommy22alyns]

I keep the true Prismacolors for school work only and have them use Crayola for any extracurricular coloring. You could say that anything you file with formal school work can be done with the Prismacolors.

 

I've used Prismacolor Scholars and I didn't see a big difference between them and Crayola other than the better color variety.