When the Chalk City package showed up at our house I was definitely excited! How lucky we hit a warm, dry spell in the middle of our Pacific Northwest spring. It rains alot here, you know? I took our 5 and 3 year old outside and we opened the box. They were definitely most curious about the Road Maker and I totally get it. The Road Maker comes in a bright green mesh net bag. It folds up so it is very compact when stored. Once it was unfolded and snapped securely in place I loaded up chalk and the first kid was off to make a road.
I took the little guy with me to start making road signs with the Road Sign Stencils. He picked it up right away and even started tracing the outside of the stencil to make it look just like a real road sign. Within 3 minutes of starting the kids from across the street had wandered over and I was passing out Road Sign Stencils and chalk to 3 more kids.
At that point I got to step back and watch 5 kids make an awesome obstacle course complete with detours. We took our first trip around the obstacle course and everybody was laughing and having a blast. The older kids thought it was funny to multiply the numbers on the Jumping Jacks Road Sign Stencil and I laughed out loud when I came to first 10, then 30 and finally the 100 jumping jack stop.
My girl took a break after the first loop around the course and I thought she was just doing normal sidewalk chalk doodles off to the side. But she suddenly stood up and started saying “Wheee-Oooooo Wheeeee-Oooooo”. She ran up to me and said “Daddy, you ran the stop sign. You have to come with me to jail!” I followed her over to her doodles and realized she had made a jail! The obstacle course kept getting more complex with more and more infrastructure. The kids made a school, rest stop, diner, gas station and three jails! We had a special detour that was “Police Only” which was quickly followed with the addition of a “No Cops Allowed” detour. We played for over four hours until everybody had to go in or dinner.
We had kids from age 3 to 12 all playing together. I love how such kids across such a wide age range all played cooperatively with Chalk City toys. The toys are very well made. The Road Maker is sturdy and holds the chalk very tightly. I did have to help the younger kids with chalk loading and unloading when they wanted to change the colors of the road as it requires dexterity and pressure. The older kids didn’t have a problem loading it by themselves. The Road Sign Stencils are great. They are big enough to easily color in with standard-sized sidewalk chalk sticks. This also makes them easy to see so even at full speed you can anticipate what the next obstacle will be!
How fun would this be for summer play dates or it would even be a great activity at a birthday party. Visit the Chalk City website for more fantastic and fun activities including a game called Maze Tag and a Three Circle game that you play with a ball.
The Roadmaker currently retails for $19.99 and is currently on sale at Amazon.com.
The Road Stencil signs are $14.99 and are on sale at Amazon.com.
The Obstacle Course signs (my favorite!) retail for $14.99 and is on sale at Amazon.com.
Chalk City products are available at specialty stores and also online. Follow Chalk City on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest information and promotions! And to see footage of Chalk City in action, check them out on Youtube!
Disclosure: We were sent the above Chalk City products to facilitate this review and I was compensated for my time in posting. All opinions are honest and my own.
WOW those are SO cool!! I haven’t seen anything like it – my kids would have hours of fun with that!
How fun! It looks like everyone had a great time.
This looks like great fun . We were actually drawing with side walk chalk today.