History Unboxed is an educational subscription for children ages 5-15 that provides a monthly adventure into a different historical epoch each month. My nine-year-old son is a huge history buff, so I had to sign him up as soon as I learned about it!
My Subscription Addiction pays for this subscription. (Check out our review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
The Subscription Box: History Unboxed
The Cost: $29.97 per month + $7 shipping = $36.97 per month
ACTIVE DEAL: Refersion
CODE: Refersion
The Products: Recipes, crafts, art, myths, and relatable details of a different time and place in history every month
Ships to: US only at this time
For more educational boxes, check out our Kids Subscription Box Directory!
Good to know: History unboxed has two different subscription levels, one for children ages 5-9 and one for children ages 10-15. This review is the 10-15 age range (my son turns 10 in a few days!).
This was our first package from History Unboxed, so the box included the contents of the Welcome Box, plus our first actual monthly box. On the left is our welcome letter. Every box includes a letter from Ava, the time traveling teenager whose adventures form the premise of this subscription. On the right is another standard inclusion from History Unboxed, a coloring sheet. This one is an illustration of Ava and her little brother traveling through time.
The Welcome Box also included this timeline. My son has posted it on his wall, and he can write in the various events we study along the way as we continue this subscription. This is a nice way to add context to the different periods we study! It's important to know when important things were happening relative to when other important things happened.
This binder was also part of the welcome package. I'm sure my son will enjoy decorating this!
Here's a peek inside the binder. History Unboxed included lots of great supplies for working on future crafts! Fun!
The Welcome Box also included its own project! A time capsule!
These are the contents inside the time capsule. It includes a sharpie, a questionnaire for my son to fill out all about himself, a timeline of his life, a letter to his future self, plus ideas of other things for him to include inside his time capsule. This is a wonderful idea! My son is really excited about working on it! We still haven't decided when he should set the open date, though...
Now, on to the January box. This month's era is Ancient Ghana!
This is our letter from Ava, all about ancient Ghana, and on the right is our coloring page. The coloring page from the Welcome Box really wasn't too interesting to my son. Ten-year-olds fancy themselves a bit old for coloring. This coloring page, however, is much more intresting and will help him remember details of this historical era. He wants to do these and add them to his binder.
History Unboxed also included this additional page of information for older students and educators. It's actually a pretty interesting read. I knew absolutely nothing about Ancient Ghana before this, so it was really helpful for both of us!
Although I didn't know anything about ancient Ghana, I did know about the "oral tradition" of history in times and places that did not yet have a written history. That's what this note and CD are all about: stories from Ancient Ghana, handed down through the generations. I really enjoyed sharing this with my son!
Following the storytelling, we had to make up our own stories using some of the characters plus this deck of writers' cards. This was fun and helped my son to understand the art of storytelling. On the right is a camel sticker he put on his binder.
Our project this month is to use a circle loom as the craftsmen of Ghana once used. Cool! These are the instructions they provided.
These are the weaving supplies they provided, plus some cotton for my son to get an idea of what the raw material is like. Believe me when I say, we know what cotton is like! This stuff grows everywhere in Georgia!
The final item included this month is a reipe for salt cured lemons. This is really different from any recipe I've ever seen in a subscription box before! I love that they included this! I think this is a really fantastic way to share a part of the past with my son.
Verdict: I think History Unboxed is a wonderful way of learning about history at a reasonable price. I think this would be a great subscription for children who are home schooled! It's also fabulous supplemental material for kids like mine who go to school. On their website, History Unboxed talks about helping kids make an emotional connection to the different time periods. I think that by doing what people in those periods did and eating what they ate, this subscription helps children do exactly that. I love that my sons like to spend time outside of school learning, and I love to facilitate that learning.
What do you think of History Unboxed?
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