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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’ve enjoyed doing the projects over the years.
Kiwi Crate
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Kiwi Crate ships via FedEx Smart Post and usually takes about a week to arrive to me.
W (my 4-year-old) and I worked on this one together. L (my 8-year-old jumped in a bit too) He still needs quite a bit of help with the projects, but he loves working on them.
The February 2017 Kiwi Crate theme was “Fizzy Chemistry Lab” and included three projects: “Color Changing Drawings,” “Monster Making” and “Cool Reactions.”
Acid & Base Mixtures
The first step (and the core of this project) was to create our acid and base mixtures. This was as simple as mixing citric acid and water (Acid Mixture) and baking soda and water (Base Mixture).
Project #1 – Color Changing Drawings
Color Changing Drawings allowed us to discover how acids and bases change goldenrod paper. It was medium on the messiness scale and medium on the grownup involvement scale.
We started with the Base Mixture and drew a pattern on the goldenrod paper with a q-tip. After it dried we “painted” over it with the Acid mixture. It somewhat made the pink “Base” writing disappear, but we may have been a little heavy-handed with our first drawing ;).
The second step of this project was to write a secret message. We opted for W’s name. This took a while to dry, but we did get our “secret message” to appear when we painted over it with the base mixture (and forgot to get a picture).
Project #2 – Monster Making
Monster Making used acids and bases to create your own color changing monster. It was medium on the messiness scale and low on the grownup involvement scale.
For this one, W gave his monsters googly eyes and then drew patterns on the monsters with the acid mixture. After they had dried he painted over his monsters with the base mixture to reveal their features.
Project #3 – Cool Reactions
The third project was Cool Reactions, which allowed you to experiment with warm and cold acid-base reactions. It was medium on both the grownup involvement scale and the messiness scale.
This is where L got interested! We made our warm and cool acid bases and then dropped a ball in each which we made out of baking soda and soap. “A” was the cool water, and “B” was the warm water. “B” bubbled up much faster for us, just as the information booklet predicted!
explore! Magazine
As usual, the explore! magazine includes puzzles, games, recipes, experiments, stories and additional activities relating to the theme. This month’s box also included an additional Chemistry Experiments Lab Book with more activities to try out. We have plenty of extra supplies so we can work on more of these when we have time.
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