I got The Petit Collage Color Me Placemats in the San Francisco offering for my younger children. I figured it would be great for times away from home like when at a restaurant, appointment, road-trip, or at a friend or family members home with nothing to keep my little one occupied and was right in that assumption These have given my children something to do to ease new situations and given them something to focus on when they have to wait awhile. These have proved not to just be fun but educational as well.
There are 36 pages total. These pages repeat so there are two of each of the 18 activities. Since these repeat, you can have at least two children color the same designed page at once. Pages have suggestions for drawing people on a trolley car, adding items to a taco truck, decorating mural, adding color to the Victorian houses, and more. Some of the pictures already have color and some have none at all.
I love the educational aspect of these! Children will learn about how Crab is a popular dish in the City By the Bay, how many hills are traveled by trolley or bike and how the city has many steep ones, that Lombard a street in this city is the most crooked street in the world, how there's a 49 mile scenic drive, that this where the Golden Gate Bridge is located and so much more. Each of these facts has their own designated pages with coloring and drawing activities that correspond with it. You could certainly use these for anytime but if planning a trip to this City, I would recommend highly in having these placemats on hand to add to the experience.
The illustrations are really cute. The areas to color are wide so little won't get upset if they are trying to keep in the lines. The activity suggestions likely will need to be read if your child is not reading yet. Each page can be removed easily from the pad to save or to recycle when through with it. The sizing of the placemats isn't too big nor too small. The whole thing fits into my medium size diaper bag with room to spare. These are great to use on table tops as the thickness of the page helps it from shifting all over. If coloring these in the car, I would suggest not removing the pages from the pad or you'll just have to have something extra on hand as a solid surface for coloring the pages.
The price isn't terrible to me since I am considering the quality, educational value and quantity of the placemats/activities. Since this isn't an everyday use coloring book and the fact I can use it for two of my children I feel the price is about right. I would suggest this mainly for children ages six and under.
SO, I have been carrying this around for months now. I was waiting to see if they would EVER get bored of it. Nope! I have 3 kids: 5, 3, and a 2 month old. Now, he is too little to make one, obviously, but my girls actually take it on themselves to make their brother a placemat when we are out. I rip off a new sheet for each child and then break out my small box of crayons from the busy bag in my diaper bag. They will now be occupied for about 20 minutes or so. This is perfect! Just enough time for our food to arrive and not too long to distract them away from dinner. My husband and I join in and color with them or make doodles on the sides for them. We even started making stories with little pictures across the top and let the girls figure out what they are and what the story would be. The pad is lightweight and fits on the back of my diaper bag easily. Great idea! THANK YOU!! This saved me so much frustration while out with the whole family. Now people look at my kids and wonder how they are so well behaved. :)
These are fun placemats that I put down when dinner is taking a bit longer then expected and the kids are already at the table waiting.
I personally love that this is 100% wood free paper printed with vegetable inks. I honestly would not have felt/seen the difference between this paper and regular paper made from wood.
There are 36 pages and each page has a duplicate so there are actually 18 individual designs. This is perfect for my family since I have two children. Each of the 18 individual page designs are full of fun facts, awesome pictures to add their own flair or artwork to. The size is also amazing as it fits in my Diaper bag perfectly Ju-Ju-Be XY Collection Helix Messenger Diaper Bag, Carbon This also fits in my alternate diaper bag which is Ju-Ju-Be Tokidoki X MiniBe in Space Place Just so you could reference that you can travel with them (11x9inches)!
I am not sure what else I can say about these Petit Collage Color Me Placemats, except when they run out I will be getting the Safari and then the Ocean set!
Overall Grade A!
This pad is a fun activity for kids on the go. It has two pages each of several activities related to San Francisco. They are much like the kids menus you can get at restaurants with coloring and different activities. Each page has something interesting to learn about the city of San Francisco, such as information about foods, transportation, and sights. The pages are printed in color, but have a lot of white space for kids to color on their own. The pages also have suggestions of things to draw and add to the scenes to make them complete. The paper is thick enough to be good for coloring and can also withstand markers and pens. They also easily tear out of the pad when ready to be used. I think these activities are great to keep kids entertained in restaurants, cars, or any time you have a boring wait.
The Petit Collage Color Me Placemats, San Francisco are a great thing to keep in the diaper bag or car especially when you go to your favorite restaurant. We live in a small town that has a great amount of food options but we find ourselves usually going to the same 4-5 places. The color me placemats are a great entertainment factor when you don't want her to be in front of screen or is looking for another activity. Some comments have been made about the smallness of the placemats making it difficult to use for an actual placemat. I agree with the assessment, but these are truly meant for entertainment purposes.
Feature Product
- We've combined our friendly illustrations with simple prompts encouraging kids to use their imagination to complete each page; The compact size is perfect for slipping into a bag on the way out the door: on-the-go art studio, delivered
- Made from 100% wood-free paper printed with vegetable inks
Description
Petit Collage Where Design Meets Play
The novelty and cuteness factor of these is the biggest seller - definitely a great gift. These are really nice quality, both in printing and in paper stock. The art is cute and eye-catching.
I have a toddler and a seven-year-old, and both found fun with these. The instructions on the activity pages are simple, but there's plenty of room for a scribbler to enjoy them. My older son calls forth trivia about San Francisco to the front seat of the car.
I would consider these more of a coloring page than a placemat. They are small, about 11 x 9. Not large enough to cover much table! But if you plan to bring these along to a restaurant for a few extra minutes of entertainment, I highly recommend. They also fit great on those tiny airplane trays.
These might be closer to 3.5 stars. First the pictures are simple but cute and are nice stiff pages that make them nice and easy to use on a table or any surface that wont support a thin page. These definitely aren't your coloring books of old. They are smaller than a typical restaurant place mat but it does make for easy travel. The price seems a little high for the size and complexity of the pictures but so far the little one has enjoyed using them as a special treat when we go someplace without their own mats.
This is a nice activity book with cute illustrations. It's a good mix of colorful and colorable pages, and a good mix of activities and coloring.The backs are blank, good for extra drawing. The stiff back makes it great if you're bringing it somewhere without a table surface, or in the car. The paper is nice and smooth, better for drawing and coloring that the old-fashioned newsprint coloring books.
I have a couple of issues with it. Everything's sort of on the simplistic side, which is fine for littles, but it also means kids can quickly burn through a lot of pages. Most of the pages also have written instructions, which quickly become a pain in the neck in the car, if your preschooler wants to know what they say. (And unless you're talking a really early reader, the activities and coloring is a little babyish for older colorers.) Since the price is much higher than your average coloring book, that brings the value down for me. The other problem for me is the binding. It's bound at the top with pages that are meant to be torn out as placemats. But this also means the binding is on the loose side, and when you start leafing though the pages to pick out a page, the pages can start to come loose, making them more apt to fall out or get mangled.
If your target is tiny kids, this is all fine--you'll probably tear out a few sheets for them, and they won't care what pages they get. But as the kids get older and more discerning, they'll want to pick out their own pages, increasing the odds of loosening other pages. And they also tend to want to save their best creations, but the loose pages make that less likely.
I think it's perfect for very small children who are just learning pencil skills, but will be less engaging and more problematic in design for preschoolers.
We're keeping ours in the car, in a zip bag with crayons, for errands and outings that turn boring. By limiting the use to outside the home and keeping the loose pages corralled in a zip bag, I hope to maximize the benefits/value and minimize the shortcomings. And it's a good insurance policy for kid-menu-less restaurants.
This has become one of my kids favorite coloring books when we go out to eat. I carry it (and crayons) around in the purse/backpack. The pictures repeat but there is enough variety my kids don't mind (plus they can color the same picture at the same time). The paper is lightweight and some images have color already on them or suggestions on what to draw.
These placemats are very cool, the San Francisco theme is nice, such a cool idea. We use placemats for the kids, these are smaller than the usual placemats we use, but this is labeled as travel mats so I suppose they should be smaller. These are made of recycled products which is a plus. Picture attached is a comparison in size with our other placemats.
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