How Much Do Your Kids Play with Their Easel?

IKEA easel here and we love it. They play with it a lot. It folds flat, so when it wasn't it use, we'd fold it up, put the markers/crayons in a box, and put the easel in the stairwell to the basement. It's worth it. IKEA also sells big rolls of paper to put on the easel, and we've had the first roll for about 2 years!

My almost 13-year-old refuses to give hers up. I would say it was one of the best gifts she got. And she still has it in her room and writes notes to herself or to me just about every day.

Our son got the Ikea one (with a paper roll, chalkboard and white board with markers on the opposite side) when he was 2 and didn't play much with it at the time.
This changed when he was about 2 1/2. Now, very few days pass without him using it. He uses the white board to practice writing his letters or shapes and the paper and crayons to draw.
His sister is now 15 months and uses it all the time. She uses the crayons on the whiteboard, which is OK as I just need to wipe it clean.
They often play at the same time because the youngest is adoring her big brother and basically spend her days chasing and copying him!
It's one of the most used toy in our house (maybe because it is always here while other toys tend to rotate), together with play dough and blocks.

If you don't have room to spare, maybe try to convert something you already have to a drawing surface? hang a roll of paper under a small table, so you can just pull it up and across the table , the kids can draw on it, and then you can cut off their creation from the roll. You could also use the same table and paint the top with a few coats of chalkboard paint so they could color right on that table with chalk.

If you don't have a kids table to do those with, do you have a specific area of your house, or a room or corner that is their dedicated play area? Try painting one wall in that corner with chalkboard paint, maybe even "frame" part of the wall, so it looks like an old school room chalkboard, and get a bigtablet of paper to hang on the wall next to it, or on the other side fo the corner wall for them to color on. That would be great for "playing school".

Just some thoughts.

Good Luck!

Jessie

We have the Melissa and Doug full size one. I have a now 5 and 2 yr old, and they play w/it rarely. I think they would if I had it set up permanently in a visible space and ready to go, but when I did the 2 yr old would take the markers and get a little creative - on herself and other things - and that wasn't okay w/me. The older one likes to do painting on it, but that needs to be supervised, and doesn't happen every day.

If you are looking for a space saving option, there are table-top ones and ones that fold flat (M&D one isn't too good at folding, as the paper roll is in the middle). Also, if you're not sure your kids will use it much, I've seen directions for a DIY table top one from a clean pizza box - at least you could try out the concept and see if they'd use it.

Personally... I would probably not get such an expensive one again, or maybe not at all, for how much they use it. They do great with just making art flat on the table. I know it's supposed to be a developmental stage where they much prefer to make art upright, but my kids never did that. Good luck!

ikea, and my daughter LOVES It she is 5 my son 7 will play with her but doesn't initiate it, He likes just an old dry erase board my mom passed on to him, that he can put on his lap. our easle fold up to be stored flat.

We like our IKEA easel. I wish it had a tray on both sides, but I just rigged up a little hanging box on the other side to hold the eraser and chalk.
The only thing with the easel is that my kids would love their pictures so much and couldn't save them. So we started taking photos. When they draw something special, I write the date and name on it and take a picture, and then they are not so sad erasing it.

I like that each child can use one side. It's light enough to move around easily. It's hasn't been messy, but we don't use it for paint. I had worried about the chalk dust, but it hasn't been a problem for us. I got two erasers and labeled them one for marker and one for chalk (just in case there was a problem with marker residue getting on the chalk board, or vice versa). I haven't been using it with the paper roll because I didn't want them drawing off the paper and messing up the boards, but I suppose now that they are older they could handle it. My kids are 7 and almost 9 and still like to draw on their easel.

mine would all the time if I felt like dealing with the paint, but I don't-so rarely.

I got a table top one for the same reason...lack of space. He likes it but he has been outside all summer so hasn't touched it for a while. I had the same issues as some others as well...he is only 2 1/2 so this past winter when he did have it...crayons & chalk didn't always stay with the board. Probably good for your 4 year old but would watch leaving anything where your 2 year old can have too much fun :)

We had one... but it ended up being mostly decorative. Kiddo nearly *never* used it.

Although he *would* use butcher paper taped to a wall from time to time to "get to draw on the walls" (which was, of course, forbidden... hence the interest), he mostly preferred to work on his art flat on the table or floor.

Luckily ours came from IKEA, and as such, was about $20. As opposed to our friend's gorgeous easel that cost well over $100, and got about as much use.

hello
my son played for his for a really really long time. was one of the best gifts we ever gave him. he is now 8 and still uses it. we bought it for him when he was about 3 1/2... I think it's so worth it. you can do so much with besides art, you can teach him the alphabet and so many other things. It was setup in our livingroom for years and is now in my son's room. again, he still plays with it. we have one that has room for a paper roll, chalkboard and markers on the opposite side.
we too don't have much room, but this is his biggest toy..
best of luck

we had a dry-erase easel that you could attach paper to when I was younger... we played with it for about a month before the novelty wore off... then every couple months we would go on a fad where we couldn't get enough of if for a few days, then forget about it again. I would go for it, but get one that can collapse and be stored under a bed or something...

My kids love their easel, but be warned- my younger daughter, now 3, got this last Christmas when she was 2, and with the crayons left in the easel tray all the time, she would take them and color on the walls! Yike!

Funny stuff!!! I bought my 3 year old an easel at Target about three weeks ago.....she has actually colored on it once......climbing on it and using it as a "house" for her dolls?...well, thats a whole other story!!!!

My nearly four year old has the $20 Ikea easel and she loves it. We've almost gone through the roll of butcher paper that we also got at Ikea $4 or something. She uses markers on it and I rip off the really pretty bits and hang them on the wall.

As long as I keep rotating the paper out for fresh paper she'll fill it up. Though for the most part she likes to sit at the table with a coloring book. Sticker books are her FAVORITE. She loves stickers more than that easel. She even loves it when I get free address labels from organizations trying to get me to donate money. She'll stick them all in a coloring book and then color around them.

I have a home daycare and I have 2 kids. We love our easel and use it ALL the time. Some kids some to care having never painted before. Over a relatively short amount of time they all love it. And it's good for their artistic exploration and fine motor skills, (brush painting helps develop skills used in handwriting).

I have purchased 2 IKEA easels, but I don't have a "paint friendly" place in my house and (though they are well supervised) I give the kids a lot of freedom with painting. I left it outside and it didn't weather well. For the cost and the flexibility and for only 2 kids, the IKEA one is a bargain. You can do chalk on one side and dry erase on the other and/or you can tape paper on the dry erase side and paint. That's mostly what we used it for. It has a handy little tray to hold paint cups and paint drips. You can also save your floor/carpet by putting down a tarp.

Most recently I bought a 2 sided acrylic and metal easel that it designed for outside/inside. I got it through Discount School Supply. I love it! It's sturdy and easy to clean, however it doesn't have a place for a butcher paper roll and you have to just use paper or paint the acrylic and save the picture by putting paper over the wet paint like relief painting. I also like it because it has an adjustable height option. For bigger kids you can use it as it, but for smaller ones you can lower to their level.

You could also consider getting an easel that is flat and attaches to an outside fence or and indoor wall. (I believe that I have seen those through Discount School Supply also.) Then you can just roll it up and store it when you aren't using it.

Good luck! Painting is so good for kids. It is messy, but so worth it!!!

We have one but we don't have room to have it set up all the time. The kids use it very little when it is set up , they use crayons and copy paper most of the time. We are going to put in a low shelf , 12 inchs wide 4 ft long put legs on it like a table , make it a kind of art bar. with places to store stuff , stools to sit on to draw at it.

I bought my daughter the chalkboard kind and put it in the backyard. I'm a neat-freak and was worried that it would create a mess (my dd is almost 3) and she plays with her easel every time we go outside. She loves to make circles on it, lines, have me help her write her name, etc. If you're afraid of having one in the house, I'd recommend one for outside. :)

My 2 year old loves her easle. She colors all the time, we have only painted once, but she is always coloring. She even pulls me over a tiny chair to sit with her and color.

We also have the one from IKEA and I love it. It folds up flat for storage and for the price you really can't beat it.