Crayola Create and Play

Review by eFreeware

Crayola Create and Play is an educational game from Crayola LLC, the company behind the crayons, and it gathers coloring pages, drawing tools, pixel art, pet care and a set of school-style activities into one app for young children. The premise is simple: instead of handing a child a single coloring page, it keeps a large library of creative things to do behind one icon. For a parent looking for something a preschooler can open without supervision, that breadth is the main draw.

The app is free to download and carries ads, and it offers in-app purchases. The developer also advertises a seven-day free trial with the option to cancel, which points to a subscription sitting behind part of the content. It has been on Google Play since November 2018 and has passed one million installs, with a 3.9 average across 7,866 ratings. That is a respectable score rather than a perfect one, which fits an app that tries to cover a lot of ground for a very young audience.

What a child actually does in the app

The heart of it is art. Children color and draw on a large set of pages, and the developer describes the supply as unlimited, so there is always another sheet to fill in. Alongside ordinary coloring there is pixel art, where kids build pictures of unicorns, dogs, cats, dinosaurs and other pets square by square, and glow art, which gives drawings a bright, luminous look. There are also craftables such as dinosaurs and rocket ships to color and assemble.

The tools are meant to mirror the physical ones. Children work with versions of real Crayola art supplies, using crayons to color and draw, plus stamps, stickers and glitter to finish a picture. That combination matters more than it sounds: it lets a child who is not yet confident with freehand drawing still produce something that looks complete, which is usually what keeps younger kids coming back.

The app also turns a child's own pictures into puzzles. Artwork they have made can be cut into a puzzle they then solve, which is a neat way of giving their work a second purpose. It is the kind of feature that is easy to overlook in a store listing but tends to be the one children ask for again.

The learning layer, kept light

Crayola pitches the app as inspired by STEAM and STEM teaching methods, and the activities follow through in a gentle way. There are coding exercises, spelling practice and number recognition, all wrapped in the same colorful presentation as the art. The aim appears to be familiarity rather than instruction: a child meets the shape of a coding problem or a number puzzle while they are still having fun, and the difficulty stays at the level a preschooler or early elementary child can handle.

The most distinctive piece is a set of behind-the-scenes videos showing how Crayola crayons are made. For a child who has spent an afternoon coloring with the digital versions, that is a natural next question answered, and it is the sort of content most children's art apps do not bother with.

The pet section adds a different kind of lesson. Children hatch a pet, design and color it, then look after it by washing and feeding it. The developer frames this as practice in kindness and empathy, and while no app can teach empathy on its own, the routine of caring for something a child has designed themselves is a reasonable way to introduce the idea.

Content that keeps arriving

New games and art activities are added monthly, according to the developer, and the most recent update is a good illustration of how that works. It brings a Halloween quest with monster pets to hatch, glow art pages, pumpkins to carve and costumes for pets to wear. Seasonal updates like this give a child a reason to return to an app they may have worked through, and they spread the novelty across the year rather than dumping everything at launch.

The audience for all of this is spelled out fairly clearly: toddlers, preschool and pre-kindergarten children, and young children generally. That is a wide band, and the art tools will stretch further than the coding and number exercises, which are aimed at the younger end. Parents of a five- or six-year-old should expect the creative side to carry more weight than the academic side.

The app is built in partnership with Red Games Co., a studio made up of parents and educators, which was named seventh on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in Gaming list for 2024. That is the developer's own framing, but the educational slant of the content is consistent with it.

Cost, ads and the safety paperwork

Crayola Create and Play is free to download, shows ads, and offers in-app purchases. The split between what is available without paying and what a subscription covers is something a parent will want to check before handing over a device.

On the safety side, the app is certified under COPPA and PRIVO and compliant with GDPR, which is the kind of certification a parent or teacher looks for before installing anything for a young child. It is approved by parents and teachers and suitable for the whole family, with adults encouraged to play alongside their children.

The app has an Everyone content rating, and a contact address for questions or comments is published for it. For a free app aimed at children, that combination of certifications and a visible support route is worth more than it might seem.

The child this fits best

I would picture this working well for a household with a four- or five-year-old who likes coloring but loses interest in a single page quickly. The mix of coloring, pixel art, glow art and craftables means there is usually a different activity a few taps away, and the puzzle feature gives finished pictures a life beyond the screen. A child who already draws confidently with real crayons will find plenty to do here as well, particularly in the pixel and glow modes, which are harder to replicate with real crayons.

The pet care section suits a slightly different temperament: a child who likes nurturing routines and dressing things up more than filling in pages. Because the pets are designed and colored by the child first, the care routine is tied to something they made, which tends to hold attention longer than a generic virtual animal.

Classrooms and home-school settings are another plausible fit, given the STEAM framing and the coding, spelling and number activities. A teacher looking for a rotational art station for early years would find the breadth useful, though the subscription question would need answering first.

Where I would be more cautious is with older children. The learning content tops out early, and a seven- or eight-year-old who wants a real drawing tool will likely find the coloring pages too guided. This is an app built around the preschool and early elementary years, and it is strongest there.

A generous art box for early learners

Crayola Create and Play is a strong choice as a first creative app for young children. The range of activities is the strongest argument for it: coloring, drawing, pixel art, glow art, craftables, puzzles made from the child's own work, pet care and a light academic layer, all under a name parents already trust. The monthly updates keep the library from going stale, and the COPPA, PRIVO and GDPR credentials are the sort of thing that makes an install decision easier.

The reservations are straightforward. It is free with ads and in-app purchases, and a subscription with a seven-day trial appears to sit behind the full experience, so the cost of the app is not really zero.

If you have a toddler, preschooler or early elementary child who enjoys making things, this is worth installing and trying during the trial period, ideally with your child beside you for the first session or two. If your child is older and wants an open-ended drawing tool, the guided activities here will feel limiting. For the age group it is built for, it covers an unusual amount of ground in one place.

What's new in version 2.62.0

Trick-or-treat your way through a new Halloween Quest! Hatch brand-new monster pets, create glowing masterpieces with new Glow Art pages, carve pumpkins, dress up your pets in silly costumes, and discover even more spooky surprises along the way!