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L is home from school sick today (he’s feeling WAY better than yesterday though), so we took advantage of the quiet day we were having and worked on our February 2014 Kiwi Crate!
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 takes about a week to arrive. We received it last week sometime, but today was the first real chance we had to work on it.
Does Kiwi Crate still send out the monthly sneak peeks? I don’t think I have gotten any lately? Which means I had no clue what the theme would be this month. I have heard that sometimes people who subscribe through one of the deal sites (Plum District, Living Social, etc.) receive older crates, but I have always subscribed through Kiwi Crate directly, so I always get the current one. It seems that Kiwi Crate now sends a variety of crates to subscribers (as many as eight different crates are circulating each month per Kiwi Crate) and it makes no difference on how you signed up for a subscription, so some subscribers will receive Around the World this month, while others will receive a crate sent out in a previous month. I have been a subscriber for awhile now, so I am guessing there aren’t too many crates I haven’t received, so I receive the current one. Thanks for the clarification Rebekah!!!
The February 2014 Kiwi Crate theme is “Around the World” and includes two projects “my world flags” and “my world map”. I am not sure this was their intention, but I found it to be a great tie in with the Games happening this month! L saw lots of flags and heard about lots of different places during the last few weeks, so it was fun to show him some of them on the map!
Project #1 – My World Map:
Project #1 was “my world map” and included landmarks to add to your map so that you could play a game. Whoever can travel around the world the fastest and get four in a row is the winner! This project was low on the messiness scale, medium on the grownup involvement scale and involved discovering, exploring and communicating.
L LOVED this game! We played (he won) and he did awesome finding the landmarks and was super into it. I am guessing that we will be saving this one since this is totally a game we’ll play in the future. I will probably laminate the game boards so they last longer!
Project #2 – My World Flags
The second project this month was “my world flags” and included colorful felt to create a set of flags from around the world. This project was low on the messiness scale, low on the grownup involvement scale and involved discovering, creating and moving – fun!
We had a little trouble with this one because one of the felt provided was white and lots of the flag examples were white. I thought that was a little odd, but in hindsight, I think we were just suppose to stick the sticky felt pieces right on the flag part? That makes a lot of sense now that I think about it! We were able to make it work our own way and had a good time with it!
This month’s explore! magazine included a story, a drawing project and various craft ideas. It also included a little passport game which reminds me that I need to get L’s passport renewed!!!
This month’s “try it for yourself” was a blubber experiment and was all about discovering how penguins and other Antarctic animals stay warm. We didn’t have any shortening so we couldn’t do this one, but next time we are at the store we will pick some up and do this because it sound fun!
Did you get Kiwi Crate this month? What’d you think? Which box did you get this month if you ordered from somewhere other than Kiwi Crate? If you are interested in subscribing, head to the Kiwi Crate website to order your crate. And don’t forget to use the coupon code “FBSave25” to save 25% off your first box!
