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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, but he’s close to outgrowing it (he’s 7), so WB (he’s 3) and I did this month’s box together.

Kiwi Crate ships via FedEx Smart Post and generally takes about a week to arrive. As I mentioned in my August Koala Crate review, all of my Kiwi Crate boxes (Kiwi Crate, Koala Crate and Doodle Crate) arrived together in one large box this month.

Our Kiwi Crate (and Doodle Crate / Koala Crate) seemed to arrive later than normal this month.  It was fine though because we’ve been so busy that we wouldn’t have bee able to work on it until now anyway.

The September 2015 Kiwi Crate theme was “Woodland Creatures” and included two projects: “My Marble Run” and “My Forest Friends”.

Project #1 – My Marble Run

My Marble Run included all of the materials needed to construct your own beaver damn marble run.  It was low on the messiness scale, medium on the grownup involvement scale and involved “exploring”, “discovering” and “moving – fine”.

I did most of the prep work on this one including the folding of the “logs”, but WB helped with the velcro. As we were making it I was rather skeptical that it would actually work.

I am pleased to report that not only did this work, but that WB is obsessed with it.  OBSESSED.  We found that it works better on a slight angle instead of hanging straight up and down so we currently have it propped on some pillows in the living room.  WB has spent way longer than I ever expecting moving the “logs” around and trying to get the “boulders” (that’s what he calls them) to fall in each of the bottom boxes.  He absolutely loves this.

Project #2 – My Forest Friends 

The other project included in this month’s box was “My Forest Friends” which included all the materials necessary to decorate and put together animal zipper pulls. It was low on the messiness scale, low on the grownup involvement scale and involved “exploring”, “creating” and “moving – fine”.

WB was so interested in the marble run that he mainly left me to do these.  He did one and I did all of the others.  I found them very easy to do and you could be as creative with your animals as you wanted (see WB’s 3 eyed fox).

These zipper pulls might be one of the cutest Kiwi Crate projects to date.  These would make a fabulous preschool craft project.  Adorable!

explore!

As usual, the explore! magazine includes puzzles, games, recipes, experiments, stories and additional activities (like making DIY binoculars) relating to the theme.

Did you get Kiwi Crate this month? Did you love it as much as we did?  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!