Amazon has launched a new STEM Club Toy subscription box! This monthly subscription delivers "handpicked, high-quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math toys" to your door for $19.99/month.
There are 3 age range options:
- 3-4 year olds (counting, building, and cause and effect)
- 5-7 year-olds (hands-on experiments and explorations of electricity, earth science, and simple math)
- 8-13 year olds (more complex projects and experiments based on principals of physics, chemistry and engineering)
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
This is a review of the 3-4 year old age range Amazon STEM Club, $19.99/month.
The Subscription Box: Amazon STEM Toy Club
The Cost: $19.99 per month
The Products: Each month you will receive a different, age-appropriate STEM toy.
Ships to: U.S. (free shipping)
Check out more educational and STEM subscriptions for kids in our subscription box directory!
Keep track of your subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wish list!
We signed up for Amazon's STEM Club Toy Subscription as soon as it launched. I wasn't sure what to expect from the first month! Unlike the Amazon Prime Surprise Sweets box, this is packaged very simply - it looks like any other item I might order from Amazon.
The Learning Journey Count & Learn Math Playbox - $21.51 on Amazon (Retail Price $25.99)
The first toy for the 3-4 year old age range is this set of number and counting puzzles, which includes 8 individual puzzles and 30 numbers.
To give you an idea of scale, each number is about 2" tall. The box is re-usable for storage and keeping things organized, but doesn't have a lid unfortunately.
From these photos it looks like it might be made of wood - but it's actually thick board book-style cardboard with a fake wood print.
Each puzzle has a different math problem (addition or subtraction), which uses both the numeric puzzle pieces and illustrated counting exercises to teach your child some basic math skills.
My son is (almost) 2, so he is below the recommended age range for this toy. His math skills are on par for your typical toddler at this stage: he can count to 2, and repeats other numbers randomly (For example, "How many blocks do we have?" "1, 2, 7, 4, 2, 3, 8!").
We still really enjoyed playing with this though - one of my favorite things about toys like this is there are multiple possibilities for play. We traced the number shapes, said the names of the illustrated animals and things, and did a bit of counting, too.
Since there are so many numbers included, he had fun finding and sorting all of the "1" pieces out into a pile. We had a chance to talk about colors, too, since the number pieces are multicolored.
Verdict: Value-wise, I didn't really expect an amazing value from this box for this age range, which turned out to be true: This particular toy is available on Amazon for just $1.52 more than the subscription price. Looking at the reviews for this product on Amazon, it appears that other people subscribing in this age range also received this product, and were disappointed. The toy itself is something we will definitely get use of, but I wish it were a little higher in value (even just made of real wood in this case, so it will last longer). I'm really on the fence about this subscription:
Pros: This (theoretically) makes buying educational toys easy - I can really get lost in trying to make good decisions about purchases like this, so that is appealing to me. I generally trust Amazon when I buy, and they carry so many products/brands that I think the selection in the long run might be good.
Cons: The value for this age range isn't great so far (I am thinking it may be better for the older kids since their toys are likely to have higher price tags?). Their toy curation isn't proven yet, either, so we'll have to see if things improve next month - I'd hate to end up with too many toys that are similar.
What do you think of the Amazon STEM Club Toy subscription box? If you subscribe to the older age ranges, what did your kids receive in their first box?
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