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Our December Kiwi Crate arrived over a week ago, but we’ve been a bit busy (and sick), so we didn’t get to it right away. But after L’s school party on Thursday we finally got down to work.
If you aren’t familiar, Kiwi Crates are designed around fun themes and filled with all of the materials and inspiration for hands-on projects for kids ages 3-7. L is 5 and is getting to the point where he can be more in charge of the project and is able to follow along on the instructions better and better each month.
Kiwi Crate ships via FedEx Smart Post and generally takes about a week to arrive. This box actually came on a Sunday and was my first ever Sunday mail delivery ;).
The December Kiwi Crate theme was “My Polar Expedition” and included two projects “my polar window clings” and “my snowball toss”. We opted to begin with “my polar window clings”:
Project #1 – My Polar Window Clings:
The first project was “my polar window clings” and included everything you needed to make your own window clings. It was high on the messiness scale, medium on the grownup involvement scale and involved “moving-fun”, “creating” and “discovering”.
These involved the use of Kiwi Crate‘s puffy paint, which is a tough beast to tame. We got this same paint in a project a few months ago so I knew it advance it wouldn’t be easy to work with. You have to squeeze really hard while at the same time making sure the paint doesn’t fly across the room. Kiwi Crate actually sent out an e-mail letting you know to be careful with this as well. All that said? This project was adorable.
You can’t tell from my picture, but it’s you have a picture in a little plastic sleeve and you trace the picture outline with puffy paint. Then you fill with glue and let it sit to dry for 24 hours. Peel it off and you have a window cling. My mom was over and she and I had to do most of the paint work, but L happily filled the clings in with glue. L used a ton of glue so we actually had to let ours sit for a few days, but I thought they turned out great. We will totally be stealing this idea for future use.
~Project #2 – My Snowball Toss:
The second project this month was “my snowball toss” and included everything you needed to make a set of polar bear paws and ears to create a polar bear costume. Then the item can be used to play snowball catch! This project was low on the messiness scale, medium on the grownup involvement scale and involved “moving – fine”, “creating” and “moving – gross”.
I have no idea how I talked L into posing with this headband on for me. He was obviously in a good mood that’s for sure. This project worked great and the ball totally sticks to the paws, which I was worried about.
This month’s explore! Magazine included a brief story, instructions for a borax crystal snowflake experiment, recipes and more!
One of the recipes included in the magazine was for salt dough ornaments and they included a snowflake cookie cutter so you can easily make them at home. I have only made handprint salt dough ornaments and never though to make other shapes, but I bet L would love it. He likes seeing ornaments he made on the tree so we will be going this and then decorating them!
What’d you think of Kiwi Crate this month? If you are interested in subscribing or sending a gift subscription, head to the Kiwi Crate website to order your crate.
