History Unboxed Subscription Review + Coupon– September 2016

History Unboxed is an educational subscription for youth ages 5 and up. “Recipes, crafts, art, myths, and relatable details enable students to experience history with many of their senses and form a lasting and meaningful bond with the past.” History Unboxed has three different subscription levels: one for children ages 5-9, another for youth ages 10-15 and a third for ages 16 and over.

This box was sent to us for review purposes. (Check out our review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

This review is of the ages 5-9, $29.97 a month, box.

The Subscription Box: History Unboxed

The Cost: $29.97 per month + $7 shipping = $36.97 per month

COUPON: Use code MYSA294 to save 50% off your first box when you sign your first child up for a regular subscription!

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

Check out all our History Unboxed reviews and the  Kids Subscription Box Directory for more educational boxes!

Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!

Each subscription starts with a welcome kit. Inside the kit are the supplies and crafts needed “to start your historic journey.” The following supplies in the kit are used for activities in subsequent boxes:

• An interactive timeline poster
• A welcome letter and coloring sheet
• A time capsule kit to create your own historic memento
• A worksheet to help students understand how to read a timeline
• Additional art and organizational materials to use throughout your subscription

After the welcome kit, each new box explores “a different place in time.”

This month’s package is all about ancient Egypt. The ages 5-9 box is described as "highly visual, approachable materials for younger students that can be explored with the help of an educator. In addition to craft materials, recipes, and souvenirs our monthly magazine helps give educators the background they need to teach about the topic of the month."

Ava and Zane, the History Unboxed characters, taking us with them through their time adventures, and always have a story to tell that relates to the historic journey.

The first historic activity we tackled (and are still tackling) is the mummification process. How cool is that? My husband was almost as thrilled with this activity as my daughter was! We are still in the process of mummifying a slice of apple with the natron salt but when we’re done we’ll rub the apple with oil, glue on the cloth and include the tiny amulet History Unboxed sent. This is a great activity!

Here is the apple after about a week or so.  I think we'll change the salt one more time and then oil and dress our mummified apple.

Next, Cira used the supplies History Unboxed sent to paint the paper mache tomb. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture before Cira did this activity but basically, the tomb was brown – and it still kind of looks that way.

Finally, we created the board for playing Senate, a game that is nearly 7000 years old! Cira needed a little help with this but we did it together and it was fun. The game rules are above. Here's a closer look at the game we created:

Here are the additional activities we received! There is an Egyptian love story titled The Girl with the Rose-Red Slippers and a dessert recipe from Ancient Egypt to try. Also, the Ancient Egypt booklet provides lots of information.

Verdict: I really like that hands-on approach to learning with History Unboxed and there is so much to do! The activities worked well for my daughter and we both learned a lot about Ancient Egypt. While the $37.00 monthly cost is not cheap, there is so much in this box and the quality of the supplies is good, so to me, the value is there. We don’t home school any longer but if we did, this box would have been extremely useful. It’s great for supplementing school learning too so overall we’re very happy with History Unboxed.

What do you think of History Unboxed?