Adding yet another set of dried out markers to the land fills of this Earth. My kids will not keep the caps on their markers, and Ruthie refuses to color with crayons.
Any ideas? Because at this point I’d rather keep the markers and toss out the kids.
Maybe she would like pastels or watercolor pencils? You could try taking her to a fancy art store, tell her that these types of utensils are for “real” artists and let her pick out a set? If you get oil pastels (sounds messier than it really is) they have a nice saturation, like a marker. The watercolor pencils are cool too, because they draw like a colored pencil–but get out some water and a paintbrush, and it’s a less messy form of painting.
My daughters hated crayons until I tried the Twistables from Crayola. The color is very strong but the part they hold onto feels more like a marker.
They also like colored pencils but I got sick of sharpening them all the time!
If Riley’s marker caps fall on the floor I make him get down and find them right then (the noise is a good signal). Also, putting them back in any case they came in helps. It *is* an annoyance, though!
A brand of markers (haven’t found it) that had non-rolling caps would be good! maybe one of those pencil-grip things would keep the caps on the table?
http://www.peterson-handwriting.com/pencilgr.htm#RegTri
I stumbled upon your post after having googled “dried out markers”. Dry markers tend to have considerable remaining pigment, though not enough solvent to make it flow. So by dipping an old marker tip into water (or alcohol, in the case of alcohol-based markers) before dragging it across paper, you can try them out as ‘watercolours’. The pigment will just be less and less saturated until finally it’s depleted.
It’s worth a try to get one last use in, before the landfill!