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Kiwi Crate
Cost: $19.95/month.
Ships To: United States and Canada.
Coupon Code: “FUNPACK” to save 30% off your first month of Kiwi Crate and their family of brands PLUS score a free activity journal, playing cards and summer chalk set!
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. It was one of the first boxes I ever subscribed to and we still love it.
Kiwi Crate ships via FedEx Smart Post and generally takes about a week to arrive. All of my Kiwi Crate boxes (Kiwi Crate, Koala Crate and Doodle Crate) arrived together in one large box.
The July 2016 Kiwi Crate theme was “Paint Pendulum” and included three steps / projects – “Paint Your Pendulum”, “Create Spiral Art” and “Play Pendulum Games”.
The box included all of the necessary supplies to build / use the Paint Pendulum, with the exception of a trash bag / newspaper to contain the mess.
Step #1 – Build Your Pendulum
The first step was to Build Your Pendulum by creating a frame for your paint pendulum. It was low on the messiness scale and medium on the grownup involvement scale.
L – my 8 year-old – worked on this one while I did my Doodle Crate and while his brother (who is 4) worked on Koala Crate. He was able to build 99% of this on his own without issue. I had to tighten a few of the nuts, but other than that it was all him. He’s just outside of the age range for this box (which is 3-7), but it gives you an idea of how much parent participation is needed for the 7-8 year-old age group. Now if my 4 year-old had been the one doing this crate, I would have had to do about 90% of the building.
Step #2 – Create Spiral Art
The second step was to make spiral art with your paint pendulum. It was high on the messiness scale and medium on the grownup involvement scale.
Now this one L needed a little help with. Somehow our paint got clogged in the nozzle of the bottle so I had to dig out the dried out paint and rinse it all out. After that though, it was smooth sailing!
It took us a few swings to get the pendulum going in a circle correctly, but we loved all the patterns the pendulum created with the paint. It was a little messy, but nothing too crazy.
Step #3 – Play Pendulum Games
The third part of this month’s Kiwi Crate was to use your pendulum to knock over targets and explore how pendulums move. We didn’t take any pictures, but we tied a bead to the cord on the pendulum and used it to knock the included wooden ball and also to “bowl” which the kids loved!
explore! Magazine
As usual, the explore! magazine includes puzzles, games, recipes, experiments, stories and additional activities relating to the theme.
Smart Summer Projects!
This month’s box also included a booklet from FamilyFun with a few fun, hands-on projects you and your kids can do together this summer. The projects involved (mainly) materials you’d already have on hand and don’t seem overly complicated. The boys will love them.
Do you get Kiwi Crate? What’d you think? If you are interested in subscribing or just want to learn more, click here. New subscribers can use the coupon code “FUNPACK” to save 30% off your first month of Kiwi Crate and their family of brands PLUS score a free activity journal, playing cards and summer chalk set!
OR, thru 7.5.16, use coupon code “SPARKLE” to save 40% off your first month of Kiwi Crate / Doodle Crate / Koala Crate and / or Tinker Crate!
