This post brought to you by Crayola. The content and opinions expressed below are that of Surf and Sunshine.
While I’m a big advocate of early childhood education via technology, I also try to keep non-educational screen time to a strict minimum. We encourage as much classic play as possible – making transforming super heroes from building blocks, cutting holes in cardboard boxes to make ourselves into robots, and making blanket forts for Roxy the Cat to enjoy to name a few, but our most favorite analog activity is drawing and making our own photo story memory books.
So what do you get when you mix the classic analog creativity of coloring pictures with your modern day favorite digital characters and top it off with a little bit of Crayola Magic? Nothing short of pure genius, I tell you.
Crayola changes coloring forever with their new Crayola Color Alive Action Coloring Pages. Making a jaw dropping debut in the modern day “augmented reality” realm, these books Bring Your Coloring To Life and allow your child’s colored creations to “come alive” right off the page via the free app. Just aim your device’s camera at a colored page, and the character becomes interactive. You can make them jump, spin, move them around on the page and even take selfies!
What’s really amazing about this activity is that the app truly takes and uses what your child has colored so that the character really does “come alive” regardless of patterns, color choices or completeness. Each page does something different so it’s almost like a treasure chest of sorts – to see how the page will interact.
Available in Skylanders™, Barbie™, Enchanted Garden™ and Mythical Creatures™. Each book contains 16 coloring pages, each featuring a unique character and animation, and comes with seven crayons, including one Magic Crayon that unlocks a special virtual effect such as Fire-Breath and Pixie Dust.
You can enter the Color Alive Sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip for 4 to the brand new Crayola Experience in Orlando, FL or Easton, PA by uploading a photo of your Color Alive creation you brought to life using the Color Alive app. Don’t have one of the coloring books yet? It’s ok, there is a free trial page you can download and use.
woah – that’s so cool – kids have so many amazing toys these days!
That looks so cool. I would love to play with that myself.
Although my kids are older, they would love this! It really takes coloring to a whole new level.
This is trippy! Seriously cool. I love how far things have come that you can do something like this. Crayola is seriously an awesome brand that does such wonderful things for children and family! Glad you are sharing this, my boys would love this!
I got to see this at Toy Fair this year it was definitely pretty popular!