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Kiwi Crate
Cost: $19.95/month.
Ships To: United States and Canada.
Coupon Code: Use code “SHARE10” to save $10 off your first month.

Kiwi Crate boxes are designed around fun themes and filled with all of the materials and inspiration for hands-on projects for kids ages 3-7. L and I have been doing the projects together together for ages and always have a good time with it.  We decided to work on this one a few days ago so “G” (L’s cousin) who was visiting could work on it with him.  For reference, L is 7 and G is 13.

Kiwi Crate ships via FedEx Smart Post and generally takes about a week to arrive. I think Kiwi Crate ships in two boxes. One around mid-month and one more towards month-end. My box is in the month-end shipment.

The June 2015 Kiwi Crate theme was “Spheres and Their Peers” and included two projects “My Tangram Game and My Bubble Shapes”.

Project #1 – My Bubble Shapes

The first project we worked on was “My Bubble Shapes” which allowed you to create and experiment with your own geometric bubble wands.  It was medium on the messiness scale, high on the grown-up involvement scale and involved “moving – fine”, “discovering” and “exploring”.

So most of the projects in Kiwi Crate we can do no problem.  The instructions are generally clear and easy to follow, but I gotta tell you, we struggled with this one.  L eventually gave up and took charge of mixing the bubble solution up, leaving G and I to fend for ourselves.  We figured out how to make a few different shapes wands, but it was only when we eventually gave up on the instructions.  They start off clear and end pretty clear, but that middle part where you to have to do all the actual work?  So confusing.  In their defense I don’t know how much clearer you can make written directions than they did!

Don’t ask me why, but I thought (and so did L) that the bubbles would come out the shapes of the wands.  LOL.  G looked at us like we were crazy.  Anyway, between the triangle one and the square one we tested, we got way bigger and better bubbles than we did from the triangle one.  It turned out to be a fun project and the kids liked blowing bubbles with the wands, but it took a while to get there.  I also wish that Kiwi Crate would have included a container if some sort for the bubbles.  In retrospect I should have used the plastic jar from the other project to store them in (and maybe that was written somewhere that I missed) to put our leftover bubbles in.

Project #2 – My Tangram Game

The second project in the crate was “My Tangram Game” which allowed subscribers to dye a set of tangram blocks and use them to play puzzles.  The project was high on the messiness scale, medium on the grownup involvement scale and involved “creating”, “discovering” and “moving-fine”.

Now for this project the boys didn’t need me at all.  They colored the blocks and measured the items needed to dye the blocks.  It made me a “little” nervous when they were running all over trying to get the bottle all shaken up, but luckily the cap didn’t fly enough.  For whatever reason the designs the boys left on the blocks with the white crayons came out so light.  You can still build with them though so not a huge deal. We build with some of the patterns includes and did a little “off-patern” building as well.

As usual, the explore! magazine includes puzzles, games, stories and additional activities relating to the theme.

Did you get Kiwi Crate this month? What did you think? If you are interested in subscribing or just want to learn more, click here! New subscribers can use the coupon code “SHARE10” to save $10 off your first month of any of the Kiwi Crate family of brands, including not only Kiwi Crate, but also Tinker Crate, Doodle Crate and Koala Crate!