What kids want

Yesterday one of the characters on Cyberchase was using a click-counter, and Archer fixated on it: "I need a four-digit counter, Dad." After some internet research, we determined that you can get them in sporting-goods departments (as pitch counters) or at office stores (presumably to count entries into events or retail situations). So we took a trip to Office Depot to pick one up for him. ("This is my Pyramid Tally counter, it has four digits.")

While there, of course, we had to get Cady Gray something too. She found something from Crayola that I've never seen before: Color Surge markers and paper. Now, I'm a longtime fan of Crayola markers and crayons; I've been buying Color Wonder books, markers, and paints since Archer was a baby. So we took the Color Surge set home and opened it up.

It comes with a stencil sheet and eight "classic" colors. The paper is thick and specially treated on both sides; it interacts with the ink in the markers to produce a fluorescent effect. Here's the side where Cady Gray colored in the stencils:



The scan doesn't do it justice, but that middle squiggle that looks white is actually yellow. The fluorescent white is actually one of my favorite things in the set, though.

And here's where she wrote her name in outlined letters and then colored them in, on the other side:



It really is an impressive effect -- the colors pop off the page, super-bright against the dark background. Lots of art products in the past several years have emphasized colors against black or dark, but this is one of the most versatile I've seen.

There's a big pad of the special paper and eight markers in the set, which we got for about $9. Cady Gray loves it, and I like both seeing her enjoy it and what she's making with it. Two thumbs up!