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Ivy Kids
Cost: $38.95/month.
Ships To: United States.
Coupon Code: “IVYSUMMER20” to save 20% off your first kit.
Ivy Kids, who kindly sent me this to review, are a monthly educational subscription for children ages 3-8 developed by early childhood teachers with children of their own. Each month you will receive a kit containing more than ten activities based upon a classic children’s book. The Ivy Kids games and projects are a fun way to develop fine and gross motor muscles, build math and literacy skills, encourage reading comprehension, and promote scientific thinking.
Ivy Kids ships via USPS Priority Mail. If you subscribe by the 22nd of August you will receive the September box. If you subscribe after the 22nd, your first box will begin with October.
Every project in Ivy Kids comes in a sealed plastic zip-lock type bag. Everything is packaged very neatly and, as a result, you can easily work on projects here or there as your schedule allows and as your little one wants too.
The September 2014 Ivy Kids was focused around the book “Color Zoo” by Lois Ehlert and included the following projects:
~Animal Puppets: Animal Puppets provides you will an assortment of shapes, popsicle sticks and glue to make puppets. We haven’t had a chance to work on this one yet, but I am going to get some googley eyes to add to them for some extra fun.
~Sorting Shapes: Ohh, this one is awesome for both L and WB. L can work on identifying and sorting some of the trickier shapes (hexagon, rhombus, etc.) while WB can sort the shapes by color. Love this!
~Let’s Make A Shape Pattern: L did a few things similar to this in school last year, so this is a great fit for him. We liked to make super long patterns for ours so that they didn’t even fit on the paper.
~Tanagrams: We have a few puzzles like this and they are seriously some of the most difficult ones we have. These weren’t as difficult since they showed you the shapes to use, but I might cut up the shape of the dog and butterfly and see if we can figure it out using just the outline of the animal.
~Shape Collage: For the shape collage you can glue the shapes onto the background to make whatever sort of shape picture you would like. Ivy Kids is kind enough to send me the sibling add-on pack for WB, so both of my boys can do one. I am thinking about putting these in their quiet boxes to work on one rainy afternoon.
~“Color Zoo” by Lois Ehlert + Bookmark: This book is the inspiration for this month’s box and I have to say, it’s totally perfect. Just looking at the front of the book and I can tell how everything relates. I hadn’t read this book before but it’s already one of WB’s favorites.
~All About Shapes & Making Shapes: I didn’t even know there was such a thing as connectors for straw creations? I remember just having to bend / fold the ends of the straw to make it them all fit. This is much much handier!
~Shape Race: Shape Race is one we haven’t gotten to yet. You have to spin the shape wheel and the first to the top wins! Somehow I have a feeling that L would win this game. He is way too good at games of chance like this!
~Shape Placemats: I think these might be my favorite item in this entire box. Both kids like them. It helps L keep refreshed on his shapes (and colors) and is a cute and easy way to work with WB on learning his.
~Race Home: This is a bit of Candyland and a bit of Chutes and Ladders all in one. L won this game when we played (again he wins all the games of chance), but I am winning next time for sure.
~Letter Zoo: These are so cool! They are flash cards, that you can put the blocks on to form the letters or animals that begin with that letter. L is all into this and had a great time finding the shapes to fit!
Since all of the activities and materials were custom designed by Ivy Kids I couldn’t do a cost breakdown on this one. If you figure there were 10 different activities / projects in this box, you could break that down to $3.90 per kit which is a steal I think!
What do you think of Ivy Kids? If you are interested in ordering or just want to learn more, click here. The deadline to order the September kit (which is the one) is August 22nd, so you have a few more days to get signed up!
