Kiwi Crate Subscription Box Review – November 2014

Kiwi Crate is a subscription box for children ages 4-8. It is filled with materials and instructions needed to do 2-3 projects each month. The projects are always crafts, and are also usually educational in nature. A couple of months ago, I got the free sample project for my 6-year-old son, and he absolutely loved it! So obviously we had to subscribe!

The Subscription Box: Kiwi Crate

The Cost: Regular monthly subscription is $19.95 per month.

The Products: Crafts and DIY projects for kids, with supplemental learning kits, booklets, and activities. Crates are filled with materials and inspiration to encourage creativity and curiosity. Projects cover a number of developmental areas through art, science, and imaginative play.

This month's theme is Discovering Dinosaurs! Is there a child on earth who is not interested in dinosaurs? There might be, but I haven't met him! Every month, Kiwi Crate includes a copy of explore! magazine centered around that month's theme. My son loves this magazine because it is full of activities and stories that are perfect for the beginner reader!

Inside the box, Kiwi Crate provides the materials and instructions needed to do 2-3 projects based on the month's theme. The instructions will let you know if you need to provide anything yourself, but if so, it is usually something you absolutely will have on hand, like scissors or a cup of water.

This month's projects are My Dinosaur Fossils and My Dinosaur Dress-Up. On the front of these instruction booklets, along the bottom, you can see that Kiwi Crate has placed indicators to let you know three things about each project. The first thing is a gauge on the left that indicates how messy the project is likely to be. Both of these projects indicate low messiness - hooray! In the middle, there is a bar that indicates how much parental involvement should be required to complete the project. Both of these projects indicate that a moderate amount of parental involvement will be required, which is fine with me. I love doing the Kiwi Crate projects with my little one! On the right are icons that indicate which developmental skills are utilized in the completion of each project. The Fossils project uses fine motor skills, discovering, and creating. The Dress-Up project uses fine and gross motor skills, and creating. The instructions also include a section on the back called "Things to Think About," which adds some more interesting facts to the learning experience. I always ask my son to read these at the end, mainly to practice his reading skills, but we always learn something too.

My son wanted to do the Dress-Up project first. He and his brother have always been very interested in costumes. It turned out absolutely adorable! It's hard to tell from the picture, but when the visor is on, the horns stick up! How fun is that?! And these feet go on over the shoes and tie around the ankles. He enjoyed making these a lot, and showing his costume off to his brother and father. There was indeed minimal mess with this project, only some scraps of felt and adhesive backing to throw away. It did require moderate parental involvement, as predicted, but in a very hands-off way, which I prefer. The only part of the project where I had to show him what to do was in lacing up the feet to tie around the ankles, but he picked it up very quickly. I was also pleased that he chose to exercise his creativity in making the visor; they had a model that the child could follow, but he made his visor have more spots and less teeth. It turned out super cute!

My inner nerd was actually more excited to do the Fossils project, but I tried to not let it show. It was a success, but this project was considerably more difficult. My son very easily matched up the foam bone stickers to the bones on each drawing, and I showed him how to roll the clay into balls and press over the foam skeletons. The hard part was removing the clay from the drawings, and ultimately I had to do it for him. It had to be done fast, in one sweeping motion, or the clay would stretch and the fossil would be unrecognizable. I think it's important for the child to be able to do all the steps by himself, even if a parent has to show him how first, so I didn't like that he couldn't do this part. In fairness, though, Kiwi Crate had sent out an email saying that there had been some issues with the clay, so hopefully this was just a fluke. We haven't had this issue with Kiwi Crate before. It was also definitely a low mess project, and it was a more cerebral project than the Dress-Up project, so I was happy about that.

Kiwi Crate is a box that keeps on giving! The back of the info card always has paper dolls of the Kiwi characters that your child can color and cut out, and the inside of each box can be colored and used as a play set for the paper dolls. My son is still using the one from last month, so he hasn't gotten to this one yet. I love that so little goes to waste!

Kiwi Crate also sends a sticker every month to add to your child's chart of Kiwi Adventures that they send with your first month's subscription. Now my son has his Dinosaur sticker as well as his Wild West sticker. Kids love achieving badges!

Verdict: I think Kiwi Crate is a wonderful subscription for children if your child is interested in crafts at all, and I really feel that Kiwi Crate delivers on all that it promises. Additionally, if you have an hour to spend time with your child, $20 is a steal for the amount of quality these projects add to that time. What do you think of Kiwi Crate?