When you draw with a crayon, did you ever wonder how it was made? If you go to a Crayola Factory, you can watch crayon-making in action! The machine in this photo pours sloshy melted red wax into hundreds of skinny round tubes. When the wax cools, it pops out as smooth red sticks. Then the blue wheel rolls glue and paper onto them, and the wrapped crayons are shoved into boxes. In the old days people could glue about 10-15 crayons per minute; this machine wraps 200 a minute!
Wee ones: If today the factory is making lime green, macaroni-n-cheese, wild strawberry, and atomic tangerine crayons, how many colors is it making?
Little kids: If you hope to glue 7 crayons in a minute and you do 1 better than that, how many did you glue? Bonus: How many more do you need to glue to fill a box of 24 crayons?
Big kids: If the machine makes blue-violet crayons the 1st day, lime green the next day, mac ‘n cheese the next, and then blue-violet again to repeat the pattern, what color does it make on the 20th day? Bonus: When does it make the 7th batch of blue-violet?
The sky’s the limit: The last time we visited the Easton, PA factory, the counter sign said the factory had made (PARENTS: show or read this aloud as just digits) 146,037,500,000 crayons! Can you say that number in words?
Answers:
Wee ones: 4 colors.
Little kids: 8 crayons. Bonus: 16 more.
Big kids: Lime green, since it’s the 2nd crayon in the new set of 3 starting on 19. Bonus: On the 19th day, since it will have just finished 6 full batches of the 3 colors.
The sky’s the limit: One hundred forty-six billion, thirty-seven million, five hundred thousand crayons!
